From Will and Grace (my 5th favorite TV show)
"you don't have to lose to have fun. you are not France."
which reminds me of a discussion in one of the books on France I recently read, which positted that France is determined to always be runner-up, but never win. Another book said that the French prefer to have to best taste rather than produce the best of anything at all. I think the French have the best breakfast pastry.
This morning Grace Paley said on KQED (one of our local public radio stations), I paraphrase, "You can love 2 places. I don't know if you can love 2 people, but you can love 2 places." She loves rural vermont (I think it was) and New York. She loves the rural area because she loves "ecology". I don't know what makes people think that living in rural areas, where resources are wasted profligately by definition, gives a deeper connection with nature. It's kind of like beating your wife because you love her.
Of course, I love lots of people (is that not what she meant?) and 2 places.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Obesity is rising sharply among U.S. preschoolers
An even bigger sign that there is something profoundly wrong with American culture and our attitude towards food:
DIET: Obesity is rising sharply among U.S. preschoolers
DIET: Obesity is rising sharply among U.S. preschoolers
One 1st person accout of the tsunamis in Thailand
Kirsti was my host in London. Mid is her husband. (Yes, she has given her permission for this to be posted here.)
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 21:24:15 -0500
Hi There,
We're fine now but were on Ko Lanta, part of the area that was hit but thank God we were ok.
The tidal waves hit us but the worst one was 4m high which took out the whole beach and the restaurants and bars - devastating and there were a number of people that were hurt,particularly divers, but no-one died, unlike other places only just north of us.
I felt the earth quake early in the morning but it went on so long I dismissed the idea of it being an earthquake, even thought it was Mid shaking the bed at one point, then decided it was strong wind. Have been in 2 others but much smaller. Lots of p[eople said the same as me though, they dismissed earthquale becasue of length.
A couple of hours later coming off the beach to wake boys up, Tasha had left at 8, noticed small waves, well everybody did, because it was so unusual, no waves on that beach ever!!
But the waves were pushing the water further and futher up the beach and it just felt very wrong. People's responses were mostly to watch but some became concerned. One older Norwegian woman quietly gathered her children and grand children and hurried them back to their huts to leave.I ran back to Mid and said maybe it was nothing but 3/4 of the beach was gone and we should get the hell out of there just in case. ( We were due to leave that day anyway so thankfully our bags were packed).
He went to watch as did Harry, George (a boy after my own heart) went towards the back of the resort, and I frantically got our things together, in between hearing the unnatural roar of the water getting closer. I screamed at Mid to get Harry and come, several times, with the water coming further in adn just as they finally took note of my hysteria a huge 4m wave (not huge compared to what other people had to contend with but it felt VERY frightening) came crashing towards us.
It was like being in your own disaster movie, is the only way I can decscribe it. Your brain is running at 100miles an hour - what to do , just run, grab our stuff and run, when would another come, could it reach us?
Everybody was panicking now and going towards the road which is a good 300m from the sea. We hijacked a tour group on the resort bus with our bags and ourselves and went with them up on to a hill where we stayed for about 19 hours, sleeping under the stars with 500 other nervous tourists and locals and thousands of mosquitoes, until the all clear came, well actually no all clear ever came but when we awoke in the morning there had been no more waves, although we were aware of the devastation, and estimated numbers of people that had been killed. We grabbed our stuff headed to the port and got on the ferry that required as little time on the water as possible to get to the mainland. We travelled all day and,
We are now on Ko Pha Ngan in the Gulf Of Thailand where we came to meet Tasha and Simon, safe, unless we are very unlucky and something else happens on this side.
I know how lucky we were, keep seeing hearing such terrible stories, but it still feels very stressful, mainly I think because of all that COULD have happened, and, of course, more information feeds that. I know those thoughts will recede over the next couple of days but sleep is proving difficult!!!
Boys were fine, George was the most distressed, Harry was a tower of strength and mine of earthquake asnd tsunami information. Mid was also quite calm, even when he realised the seriousness of it all with my harridan shouting. I can't ever remmeber being as scared in my life. Even up on the hill where you rationally know you are safe, your imagination runs wild.
I had just spent a few hours over the previous 2 days sending Merry Christmas e-mails and telling everyone exactly where we were and how lovely it was so I called Mum early in the morning your time to warn her what had happened that we were fine but that she would probably get a deluge of phone calls because unusually everyone knew where we were!! She did, but also she kept watching 24 Hour News so that we would know up to date info becasue there was so much info around but we weren't sure how much we could rely on it.
Anyway, this is the first time I've been near a computer and yours was the first e-mail so you have now recieved a longer repsonse than I had planned, but I think in some ways it has been good for me, hope it hasn't been TOO much info.
Eveyone from home has been so supportive with messages, and yes it really does make a difference in that situation even though there isn't really anything anyone can do.
Hopefully now we can get on with the rest of our holiday without any more upset. A lot of relaxing on the beach or by the pool is doctors orders for me...
Speak to you soon, and Happy New Year!!
Love Kirsty xx
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 21:24:15 -0500
Hi There,
We're fine now but were on Ko Lanta, part of the area that was hit but thank God we were ok.
The tidal waves hit us but the worst one was 4m high which took out the whole beach and the restaurants and bars - devastating and there were a number of people that were hurt,particularly divers, but no-one died, unlike other places only just north of us.
I felt the earth quake early in the morning but it went on so long I dismissed the idea of it being an earthquake, even thought it was Mid shaking the bed at one point, then decided it was strong wind. Have been in 2 others but much smaller. Lots of p[eople said the same as me though, they dismissed earthquale becasue of length.
A couple of hours later coming off the beach to wake boys up, Tasha had left at 8, noticed small waves, well everybody did, because it was so unusual, no waves on that beach ever!!
But the waves were pushing the water further and futher up the beach and it just felt very wrong. People's responses were mostly to watch but some became concerned. One older Norwegian woman quietly gathered her children and grand children and hurried them back to their huts to leave.I ran back to Mid and said maybe it was nothing but 3/4 of the beach was gone and we should get the hell out of there just in case. ( We were due to leave that day anyway so thankfully our bags were packed).
He went to watch as did Harry, George (a boy after my own heart) went towards the back of the resort, and I frantically got our things together, in between hearing the unnatural roar of the water getting closer. I screamed at Mid to get Harry and come, several times, with the water coming further in adn just as they finally took note of my hysteria a huge 4m wave (not huge compared to what other people had to contend with but it felt VERY frightening) came crashing towards us.
It was like being in your own disaster movie, is the only way I can decscribe it. Your brain is running at 100miles an hour - what to do , just run, grab our stuff and run, when would another come, could it reach us?
Everybody was panicking now and going towards the road which is a good 300m from the sea. We hijacked a tour group on the resort bus with our bags and ourselves and went with them up on to a hill where we stayed for about 19 hours, sleeping under the stars with 500 other nervous tourists and locals and thousands of mosquitoes, until the all clear came, well actually no all clear ever came but when we awoke in the morning there had been no more waves, although we were aware of the devastation, and estimated numbers of people that had been killed. We grabbed our stuff headed to the port and got on the ferry that required as little time on the water as possible to get to the mainland. We travelled all day and,
We are now on Ko Pha Ngan in the Gulf Of Thailand where we came to meet Tasha and Simon, safe, unless we are very unlucky and something else happens on this side.
I know how lucky we were, keep seeing hearing such terrible stories, but it still feels very stressful, mainly I think because of all that COULD have happened, and, of course, more information feeds that. I know those thoughts will recede over the next couple of days but sleep is proving difficult!!!
Boys were fine, George was the most distressed, Harry was a tower of strength and mine of earthquake asnd tsunami information. Mid was also quite calm, even when he realised the seriousness of it all with my harridan shouting. I can't ever remmeber being as scared in my life. Even up on the hill where you rationally know you are safe, your imagination runs wild.
I had just spent a few hours over the previous 2 days sending Merry Christmas e-mails and telling everyone exactly where we were and how lovely it was so I called Mum early in the morning your time to warn her what had happened that we were fine but that she would probably get a deluge of phone calls because unusually everyone knew where we were!! She did, but also she kept watching 24 Hour News so that we would know up to date info becasue there was so much info around but we weren't sure how much we could rely on it.
Anyway, this is the first time I've been near a computer and yours was the first e-mail so you have now recieved a longer repsonse than I had planned, but I think in some ways it has been good for me, hope it hasn't been TOO much info.
Eveyone from home has been so supportive with messages, and yes it really does make a difference in that situation even though there isn't really anything anyone can do.
Hopefully now we can get on with the rest of our holiday without any more upset. A lot of relaxing on the beach or by the pool is doctors orders for me...
Speak to you soon, and Happy New Year!!
Love Kirsty xx
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
The Stepford Wives
It's pouring rain so hard I think I should build an ark, and well, I wanted to rent the first tape of the second half of the sixth season of Sex and the City, but they were all out. So, I rented The Stepford Wives instead (I was also considering The Terminal -- I chose wrong). And I have a few questions:
1) Why would all these powerful women work for major corporations rather than their own companies? I find it a strange coincidence that corporations are running American and this film is about women who sold out to powerful positions within those corporations. Can we come up with a better idea of a powerful woman?
2) Why on earth would it be strange for a powerful woman to be having fabulous sex with her husband in the middle of the afternoon? This event is presented as if it is some freak of nature. I pity the fools who wrote this screenplay.
3) Why did Nicole Kidman go blond at the end? Is it intended as some kind of compromise between being a powerful ball-busting chyck and being a good wife and mother? Freaky!
4) Interesting that in the end the plot to computerize wives is conceived by a woman. Of course it is the stereotype and my personal experience that powerful women, esp of the older generation, are much more critical of their female employees than their male employees. Did the writers know this? What generation are they?
Overall, the film is another example of anti-post-feminist ideology pervading the popular consciousness. I am appalled that this sort of story could be made in the contemporary American mainstream.
1) Why would all these powerful women work for major corporations rather than their own companies? I find it a strange coincidence that corporations are running American and this film is about women who sold out to powerful positions within those corporations. Can we come up with a better idea of a powerful woman?
2) Why on earth would it be strange for a powerful woman to be having fabulous sex with her husband in the middle of the afternoon? This event is presented as if it is some freak of nature. I pity the fools who wrote this screenplay.
3) Why did Nicole Kidman go blond at the end? Is it intended as some kind of compromise between being a powerful ball-busting chyck and being a good wife and mother? Freaky!
4) Interesting that in the end the plot to computerize wives is conceived by a woman. Of course it is the stereotype and my personal experience that powerful women, esp of the older generation, are much more critical of their female employees than their male employees. Did the writers know this? What generation are they?
Overall, the film is another example of anti-post-feminist ideology pervading the popular consciousness. I am appalled that this sort of story could be made in the contemporary American mainstream.
French
I just took the French language placement test for our local community college and tested out of class (ie, I am beyond the level of people with 4 or more years of class). You might think this sounds like a good thing, but if you have ever tried to speak French with me, you would know that I don't actually speak the language. I consider this the worst of all possible outcomes.
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
a couple other small matters....
Pouring rain in SF is better than no rain in Paris. Before the rain I was freckling right up from all that California sun.
However, the croissant at Tartine, my local organic French-style bakery, is not good enough. Everyone I know here is trying some strange diet: no wheat, no sugar, no this, no that. What I wish they would understand is that the problem is not what you include in your diet or not, it is the entire culture's attitude towards food. It's the corporatization of food, eating, diet. it's in the radio waves or something. It's capitalism.
However, the croissant at Tartine, my local organic French-style bakery, is not good enough. Everyone I know here is trying some strange diet: no wheat, no sugar, no this, no that. What I wish they would understand is that the problem is not what you include in your diet or not, it is the entire culture's attitude towards food. It's the corporatization of food, eating, diet. it's in the radio waves or something. It's capitalism.
democracy
I love this quote from Suzahna’s blog (http://sliceoforange.blogspot.com/)
"Thus the question can be posed as the following bottom line: is democracy possible at all? Thus if you try to distill this problem to its most profound essence: is it possible to break this vicious circle? Is it possible to save a 'cursed land?' Is the embodiment of human expectations possible? Is the victory of good over evil possible?” -Yuri Andrukhovych, Ukrainian poet, prose writer, essayist, Delivered to the European Parliament, Strasbourg, France, December 15, 2004
in part because I do not think democracy is possible at a national scale. See Robert Putnam (_Making Democracy Work_, etc.)
"Thus the question can be posed as the following bottom line: is democracy possible at all? Thus if you try to distill this problem to its most profound essence: is it possible to break this vicious circle? Is it possible to save a 'cursed land?' Is the embodiment of human expectations possible? Is the victory of good over evil possible?” -Yuri Andrukhovych, Ukrainian poet, prose writer, essayist, Delivered to the European Parliament, Strasbourg, France, December 15, 2004
in part because I do not think democracy is possible at a national scale. See Robert Putnam (_Making Democracy Work_, etc.)
Author and activist Susan Sontag dies
What the article does not say is that Susan Sontag is survived by her partner Annie Lebowitz and their child. I am going to look for a less "pasturized" article.
USATODAY.com - Author and activist Susan Sontag dies
USATODAY.com - Author and activist Susan Sontag dies
Monday, December 27, 2004
Office space, footwear, and crepes
I met Tam tonight at the NN office, and said hello to KevO, Jeff, Patrick, and a lovely new employee whose name I have temporarily forgotten. The new space is very nice if a bit cramped for the entry- and mid-level staff.
There were several items on our agenda for the evening. One was footwear: I sought flat boots like are sold in every shop in Paris. Well, you can't get them here, or at least not for less than $600. And I thought SF was a world class city. All the bread, wine, cheese, pastry and gorgeous produce in the world does not make up for a lack of footwear selection.
We walked across town to Ti Couz for crepes. I wanted desert and Tam wanted dinner. We ended up splitting the whole thing. I can not report without reservation that crepes are more reasonably priced in Paris.
Over the meal (which was excellent!) we began to work on our New Year's resolutions (forthcoming)....
There were several items on our agenda for the evening. One was footwear: I sought flat boots like are sold in every shop in Paris. Well, you can't get them here, or at least not for less than $600. And I thought SF was a world class city. All the bread, wine, cheese, pastry and gorgeous produce in the world does not make up for a lack of footwear selection.
We walked across town to Ti Couz for crepes. I wanted desert and Tam wanted dinner. We ended up splitting the whole thing. I can not report without reservation that crepes are more reasonably priced in Paris.
Over the meal (which was excellent!) we began to work on our New Year's resolutions (forthcoming)....
Sunday, December 26, 2004
The day after christmas
I’ve been home for 10 days and this is the second day of bad weather. It actually isn’t that bad. The sky is letting down a light sprinkle, and the cloud cover is high so that my view of the Bay Bridge is a black silhouette against white clouds. There’s a Victorian in the view with a tower and everything. Before I left, it was run down and gray. Now it is painting bright white nearly glowing against the horizon. Another possible indication that my fate is changing. Or maybe it is just the economy.
Today’s top news stories, the earthquake and tsunamis in South East Asian and the election in Ukraine, are a strange coincidence with my life. I have spent most of the day researching the impact of the quake on friends in Thailand to make sure they are safe, and it appears that they are. Of course, I figured this out only after worrying myself sick.
E says that the lesson here night be to keep your eyes on the horizon – not get too caught up in the details of your personal life at the expense of events of international (universal?) importance. I disagree. I think matters of the heart are universal, and it is not so strange to for them to be frame by, or for them to frame, international (or universal) events. It’s hard to be human on earth – and being oneself is a huge responsibility. And that’s not even getting into the “think globally act locally” issues…. The personal is political!
My Christmas was nice and calm. There were not major conflicts (touch wood). The food was excellent, the lights and decorations pretty. We didn’t get to see the children, but that means quiet conversation (there is always a positive angle on a thing…). Today has been quiet. In fact, I have not yet left my apartment. I am considering going back to bed. I am boiling the turkey carcass for the second time – none of us will get sick this month!
That’s my story and I am sticking to it.
Today’s top news stories, the earthquake and tsunamis in South East Asian and the election in Ukraine, are a strange coincidence with my life. I have spent most of the day researching the impact of the quake on friends in Thailand to make sure they are safe, and it appears that they are. Of course, I figured this out only after worrying myself sick.
E says that the lesson here night be to keep your eyes on the horizon – not get too caught up in the details of your personal life at the expense of events of international (universal?) importance. I disagree. I think matters of the heart are universal, and it is not so strange to for them to be frame by, or for them to frame, international (or universal) events. It’s hard to be human on earth – and being oneself is a huge responsibility. And that’s not even getting into the “think globally act locally” issues…. The personal is political!
My Christmas was nice and calm. There were not major conflicts (touch wood). The food was excellent, the lights and decorations pretty. We didn’t get to see the children, but that means quiet conversation (there is always a positive angle on a thing…). Today has been quiet. In fact, I have not yet left my apartment. I am considering going back to bed. I am boiling the turkey carcass for the second time – none of us will get sick this month!
That’s my story and I am sticking to it.
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Song lyrics that make me cry
If you know me at all, you know that I am very sentimental. Some of my friends take Prozac to stop crying all that time. I am not ready to take that kind of action; instead I’d really like to figure out how to make myself happy so that I don’t cry so much. But then, I don’t even take aspirin, opting instead of a large glass of water and a quiet room.
Driving back across the Bay Bridge tonight after the Christmas party at what we are now calling “Grandpa Lizzy’s” (the house Elizabeth just inherited from her father), watching the Oakland Port cranes lit up in red, white and blue and the lights of the city’s buildings large and small, Elizabeth played for me a country song called “No fear”, which, of course, brought tears to my eyes. Let me see if I can find the lyrics online…. In the meantime, here are a few other song lyrics I want to share with you.
My friend Megan McLaughlin wrote the following song about of breakup of mine….
So Long
I’m packing everything into boxes
And putting the rest into the van
I’m going anywhere that’s far from you
I’m going to drive there as fast as I can
I hope I find someone to love me
Someone who wants me to the core
Someone to hold me like a warm wind
Rushing through the night and then to want me more
Because the love that you gave me was never enough
Never felt like it was free
And if I hold out for what I want instead of settling for less
Maybe I’ll find out what love’s supposed to be
Love comes so easy to some people
But in life there are no guarantees
It could that this on and off love that you give me is the
Closest love will ever come to me
So keep the couch and keep the toaster
Say goodbye and stop asking why
I hope you open up your heart someday
Even as you still deny
For so long now I’ve been closing up my eyes
For so long but now I finally realize
That the love that you gave me was never enough
Never felt like it was free
And if I hold out for what I want
Instead of settling for less
Maybe I’ll find out what love supposed to be
***
I like to imagine that Dar Williams is a friend, and sometimes I think that her songs are mocking me. Her song “The one who knows” also always makes me cry, though it appears to be about loving a child, I think of it as the kind of love I began seeking in the previous song. In the sense that I am not a gifted songwriter or famous or with the love of my life, Dar and I are very different, but I imagine she has some kind of secret knowledge of my soul. (Juliette would call that charm. I still believe it’s possible for 2 people to have a special and unique understanding of each other outside of their individual attractiveness pulling them together.)
Time it was I had a dream, and you’re the dream come true. If I had the world to give, I’d give it all to you. I’ll take you to the mountains, I will take you to the sea. I’ll show you how this life became a miracle to me.
You’ll fly away, but take my hand until that day. So when they ask how far love goes, when my job’s done you’ll be the one who knows.
All the things you treasure most will be the hardest won.
I will watch you struggle long before the answers come.
But I won’t make it harder, I’ll be there to cheer you on,
I’ll shine the light that guides you down the road you’re walking on.
You’ll fly away, but take my hand until that day. So when they ask how far love goes, when my jobs done you’ll be the one who knows.
Before the mountains call to you, before you leave this home.
I want to teach your heart to trust, as I will teach my own,
But sometimes I will ask the moon where it shined upon you last,
And shake my head and laugh and say it all went by so fast
You’ll fly away, but take my hand until that day. So, when they ask how far loves goes, when my job’s done you’ll be the one who knows.
***
No Fear
(Terri Clark/Mary Chapin Carpenter)
I want a road stretching out before me
I want a radio in my ear
I want a full tank of absolution
No fear
I want a rainstorm to pull me over
Then a sky that begins to clear
Towards the truest of destinations
No fear
I used to hit every wall there was
I used to run away from love
All I ever wanted was right here
But I had to reach way down inside
I had to have faith I'd find
No fear
I want the world to just keep on turning
I want the dawn in my rear view mirror
I want to hear my own voice singing
No fear
And when I need two arms around me
And theres no one near
When I'm alone let the only sound be
No fear
I used to hit every wall there was
I used to run away from love
All I ever wanted was right here
But I had to reach way down inside
I had to have faith I'd find
No fear
I want peace, Love and Understanding
A stogie and an ice-cold beer
Don't want to live afraid of dying
I used to hit every wall there was
I used to run away from love
All I ever wanted was right here
But I had to reach way down inside
I used to stay up all night long
Wondering what I was doing wrong
All I ever needed was right here
But I had to reach way down inside
I had to have faith I'd find
No fear
Driving back across the Bay Bridge tonight after the Christmas party at what we are now calling “Grandpa Lizzy’s” (the house Elizabeth just inherited from her father), watching the Oakland Port cranes lit up in red, white and blue and the lights of the city’s buildings large and small, Elizabeth played for me a country song called “No fear”, which, of course, brought tears to my eyes. Let me see if I can find the lyrics online…. In the meantime, here are a few other song lyrics I want to share with you.
My friend Megan McLaughlin wrote the following song about of breakup of mine….
So Long
I’m packing everything into boxes
And putting the rest into the van
I’m going anywhere that’s far from you
I’m going to drive there as fast as I can
I hope I find someone to love me
Someone who wants me to the core
Someone to hold me like a warm wind
Rushing through the night and then to want me more
Because the love that you gave me was never enough
Never felt like it was free
And if I hold out for what I want instead of settling for less
Maybe I’ll find out what love’s supposed to be
Love comes so easy to some people
But in life there are no guarantees
It could that this on and off love that you give me is the
Closest love will ever come to me
So keep the couch and keep the toaster
Say goodbye and stop asking why
I hope you open up your heart someday
Even as you still deny
For so long now I’ve been closing up my eyes
For so long but now I finally realize
That the love that you gave me was never enough
Never felt like it was free
And if I hold out for what I want
Instead of settling for less
Maybe I’ll find out what love supposed to be
***
I like to imagine that Dar Williams is a friend, and sometimes I think that her songs are mocking me. Her song “The one who knows” also always makes me cry, though it appears to be about loving a child, I think of it as the kind of love I began seeking in the previous song. In the sense that I am not a gifted songwriter or famous or with the love of my life, Dar and I are very different, but I imagine she has some kind of secret knowledge of my soul. (Juliette would call that charm. I still believe it’s possible for 2 people to have a special and unique understanding of each other outside of their individual attractiveness pulling them together.)
Time it was I had a dream, and you’re the dream come true. If I had the world to give, I’d give it all to you. I’ll take you to the mountains, I will take you to the sea. I’ll show you how this life became a miracle to me.
You’ll fly away, but take my hand until that day. So when they ask how far love goes, when my job’s done you’ll be the one who knows.
All the things you treasure most will be the hardest won.
I will watch you struggle long before the answers come.
But I won’t make it harder, I’ll be there to cheer you on,
I’ll shine the light that guides you down the road you’re walking on.
You’ll fly away, but take my hand until that day. So when they ask how far love goes, when my jobs done you’ll be the one who knows.
Before the mountains call to you, before you leave this home.
I want to teach your heart to trust, as I will teach my own,
But sometimes I will ask the moon where it shined upon you last,
And shake my head and laugh and say it all went by so fast
You’ll fly away, but take my hand until that day. So, when they ask how far loves goes, when my job’s done you’ll be the one who knows.
***
No Fear
(Terri Clark/Mary Chapin Carpenter)
I want a road stretching out before me
I want a radio in my ear
I want a full tank of absolution
No fear
I want a rainstorm to pull me over
Then a sky that begins to clear
Towards the truest of destinations
No fear
I used to hit every wall there was
I used to run away from love
All I ever wanted was right here
But I had to reach way down inside
I had to have faith I'd find
No fear
I want the world to just keep on turning
I want the dawn in my rear view mirror
I want to hear my own voice singing
No fear
And when I need two arms around me
And theres no one near
When I'm alone let the only sound be
No fear
I used to hit every wall there was
I used to run away from love
All I ever wanted was right here
But I had to reach way down inside
I had to have faith I'd find
No fear
I want peace, Love and Understanding
A stogie and an ice-cold beer
Don't want to live afraid of dying
I used to hit every wall there was
I used to run away from love
All I ever wanted was right here
But I had to reach way down inside
I used to stay up all night long
Wondering what I was doing wrong
All I ever needed was right here
But I had to reach way down inside
I had to have faith I'd find
No fear
Peace on earth
So far, I have received for xmas 2 books I am excited to read and a pair of organic cotton socks that say “peace on earth”. Affirmation does have power, even if just written on your ankles.
Marilynn had handouts at her xmas eve party last night. A quiz on intuition (I came out as moderately intuitive, or not trusting my intuition, probably because I don’t communicate telepathically with animals), an article about love (which I will be quoting from in a moment), and a Rilke poem.
The love article, by Dennis Overbye, posits that the most powerful force in the universe is love, greater than gravity or jealousy or anything you name. For the most part, he seems, again, to be talking about the enormous love a parent has for his children, but since I am struggling with the idea of partnership, my quotes are about that. “But tell me,” he writes, “you’ve never been taken in by a smile. Human love, biochemists say, is a sort of oxytocin drunk, an addiction to the hormones our partners, real or desired, release in us.” [YES YES YES]
Later he quotes another “Or as the refrain to Albert Einstein Dreams by Naked to the World put it
“Just because I’m Albert Einstein doesn’t mean I understand
“The ever-expanding universe between a woman and a man [OR WHATEVER]
“If I knew, or had half a clue, I’d be much more famous than I am”
On a slightly different note, Jane and Calla read about how the first communication with a newborn can be sticking out your tongue. The baby responds by sticking out its tongue. They did this with their newborn Lulu. After a short time, it became her first language – she stuck her tongue out at people, trees, dogs. I believe that this tongue sticking out is a kind of Namaste – “the spirit in me blesses the spirit in you.”
Marilynn had handouts at her xmas eve party last night. A quiz on intuition (I came out as moderately intuitive, or not trusting my intuition, probably because I don’t communicate telepathically with animals), an article about love (which I will be quoting from in a moment), and a Rilke poem.
The love article, by Dennis Overbye, posits that the most powerful force in the universe is love, greater than gravity or jealousy or anything you name. For the most part, he seems, again, to be talking about the enormous love a parent has for his children, but since I am struggling with the idea of partnership, my quotes are about that. “But tell me,” he writes, “you’ve never been taken in by a smile. Human love, biochemists say, is a sort of oxytocin drunk, an addiction to the hormones our partners, real or desired, release in us.” [YES YES YES]
Later he quotes another “Or as the refrain to Albert Einstein Dreams by Naked to the World put it
“Just because I’m Albert Einstein doesn’t mean I understand
“The ever-expanding universe between a woman and a man [OR WHATEVER]
“If I knew, or had half a clue, I’d be much more famous than I am”
On a slightly different note, Jane and Calla read about how the first communication with a newborn can be sticking out your tongue. The baby responds by sticking out its tongue. They did this with their newborn Lulu. After a short time, it became her first language – she stuck her tongue out at people, trees, dogs. I believe that this tongue sticking out is a kind of Namaste – “the spirit in me blesses the spirit in you.”
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Christmas preparations
I just want to inform everyone of a few interesting facts:
1) I just burned 3 batches of cookies in a row.
2) I found gifts for nearly everyone in my house.
This means two very important things:
1) Nothing has changed.
2) I have too much stuff (still!!!).
Merry Christmas.
1) I just burned 3 batches of cookies in a row.
2) I found gifts for nearly everyone in my house.
This means two very important things:
1) Nothing has changed.
2) I have too much stuff (still!!!).
Merry Christmas.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
On sharing your life....
My French language discussion group seems to be coming together. I have also managed to see many of my friends, and this has meant that I have had to eat 3 meals a day. I am so happy to see my friends again. And I am starting to understand why Americans are fat. Not only do we eat much more than the French (larger servings, as far as I can remember French serving sizes in general and greater frequency), but I find myself thinking about food a lot even when I am not hungry. It is as if there are radio waves in the air, like a dog whistle that you can’t hear, putting thoughts of food into our heads at all times.
About 2 months ago, Elizabeth’s father died after a long struggle with cancer. She asked him not to die on her birthday, but he was very weak that day, and passed shortly after midnight, the day after her birthday. Her parents never married. They had an affair after one of Larry’s students, who Wendy was dating, “gave” her to him for a passing grade in the class. (This is probably not actually true, but it is a family joke. Probably she just liked Larry better and Larry felt sorry for the guy bc he stole his girlfriend. The guy, incidentally, was the brother of another of my mother’s best friends.) However, Larry and Wendy shared the rest of their lives as parents of Elizabeth, my oldest friend.
Wendy was sitting at Larry’s bedside the moment he died. She watched him go. Now, if that isn’t sharing a person’s life then I don’t know what is. All of us, I imagine, wish to grow old and die with someone we love. But, maybe, it doesn’t have to look like anything in particular or have any certain label. As Elizabeth said to me yesterday, maybe in order to share your life with someone, you stay with them.
This issue is touched upon in some of the popular television programs that Elizabeth and I love. In Friends, Ross always wanted a traditional wife and family but finds himself with 2 children with 2 different women he deeply loves, neither of whom can be his “wife” (later he and Rachel decide to be a couple, but on a political level, I found this profoundly disappointing, although we all knew all along that they were each other’s lobsters). In Sex and the City, Miranda and Steve have exactly the same experience.
True partnership is sharing your life with a person, regardless of whom you sleep or eat or bath with. Sometimes, in these cases anyway, this occurs because a baby is made but it can also be based solely on commitment to being with people. Thinking about this, talking about it, I feel like a real turkey running off to Europe for half the year. I find it frustrating that the only ones that most people commit to are the person they sleep with and their children. But h*&l, my parents don’t even do that.
When you choose your life partner, you have to agree on some basic principals. Will you move away for work? Do you have to stay close to your aging parents? Your friends? Where will you live? What language will you speak at home? Who will do the laundry? Will you have a cat or a dog or a fish? Will you have children? What time will you go to bed? (And I am not even getting into sexual issues, which can be huge.) Some of these things you may feel really strongly about (I cannot live with a cat, unless he is genetically modified to be hypoallergenic, or, for that matter, a carpet) and some you may not care about at all. You might not even know how strongly you feel about going to bed at 10 every night until you try to live with someone who likes to stay up until 1. It seems like such a small matter. But just because you can’t agree doesn’t mean you don’t love each other and want to share some kind of life.
I am very happy for all my friends who have found a common ground and are getting married and having babies right and left (or, really just left in their case, but lots of them anyway), and I do feel a bit left behind. But I am sorry – I reject any conservative ideas of relationships. I love you, and I want to be near you. (Slight caveat, I might still run away for half the year on a regular basis).
About 2 months ago, Elizabeth’s father died after a long struggle with cancer. She asked him not to die on her birthday, but he was very weak that day, and passed shortly after midnight, the day after her birthday. Her parents never married. They had an affair after one of Larry’s students, who Wendy was dating, “gave” her to him for a passing grade in the class. (This is probably not actually true, but it is a family joke. Probably she just liked Larry better and Larry felt sorry for the guy bc he stole his girlfriend. The guy, incidentally, was the brother of another of my mother’s best friends.) However, Larry and Wendy shared the rest of their lives as parents of Elizabeth, my oldest friend.
Wendy was sitting at Larry’s bedside the moment he died. She watched him go. Now, if that isn’t sharing a person’s life then I don’t know what is. All of us, I imagine, wish to grow old and die with someone we love. But, maybe, it doesn’t have to look like anything in particular or have any certain label. As Elizabeth said to me yesterday, maybe in order to share your life with someone, you stay with them.
This issue is touched upon in some of the popular television programs that Elizabeth and I love. In Friends, Ross always wanted a traditional wife and family but finds himself with 2 children with 2 different women he deeply loves, neither of whom can be his “wife” (later he and Rachel decide to be a couple, but on a political level, I found this profoundly disappointing, although we all knew all along that they were each other’s lobsters). In Sex and the City, Miranda and Steve have exactly the same experience.
True partnership is sharing your life with a person, regardless of whom you sleep or eat or bath with. Sometimes, in these cases anyway, this occurs because a baby is made but it can also be based solely on commitment to being with people. Thinking about this, talking about it, I feel like a real turkey running off to Europe for half the year. I find it frustrating that the only ones that most people commit to are the person they sleep with and their children. But h*&l, my parents don’t even do that.
When you choose your life partner, you have to agree on some basic principals. Will you move away for work? Do you have to stay close to your aging parents? Your friends? Where will you live? What language will you speak at home? Who will do the laundry? Will you have a cat or a dog or a fish? Will you have children? What time will you go to bed? (And I am not even getting into sexual issues, which can be huge.) Some of these things you may feel really strongly about (I cannot live with a cat, unless he is genetically modified to be hypoallergenic, or, for that matter, a carpet) and some you may not care about at all. You might not even know how strongly you feel about going to bed at 10 every night until you try to live with someone who likes to stay up until 1. It seems like such a small matter. But just because you can’t agree doesn’t mean you don’t love each other and want to share some kind of life.
I am very happy for all my friends who have found a common ground and are getting married and having babies right and left (or, really just left in their case, but lots of them anyway), and I do feel a bit left behind. But I am sorry – I reject any conservative ideas of relationships. I love you, and I want to be near you. (Slight caveat, I might still run away for half the year on a regular basis).
Saturday, December 18, 2004
[Next steps] I've grown accustomed to your face
I am in the habit of blogging. I like it. So, I plan to continue. Over the next few months, I won't be anywhere exciting or international, but I think I might keep yammering on about whatever I feel like. As before, you are under no obligation to read it. But, this blog will remain in use.
What Was Today. (Julien Poirier)
I got up with morning at 7 (which has almost never happened) having finally slept a full 8 hours and began reading over my soy hot chocolate. I read the book that my high school sweetheart self-published in 1988. It was my Christmas present, although I am sure he gave me lots of other things that year too. His writing style is almost the antithesis of mine, if that’s possible in the same language from individuals from identical cultural backgrounds, and I don’t think I got it back in 1988 or '89 or '90…. I had remembered phrases “poured a three-piece trashed denim on” and “I don’t know you little boy, gun to head” and “Tim, we’ll talk together” (Tim is the young man I almost left Julien for shortly before he completed the book) and lots of talk of the swirling of smoke. And I remember the phrases I uttered at one point or another that, with my permission, he took possession of, and now they title the book “what was today” and begin the stories “I can hear a telephone ringing forever again”. The book made me proud, but its contents that I loved best were the “For Lilia” (at the very beginning) and the photo of me in front of the shutters in Rome on page 49. He has written in pen under the front cover “something to say that will make you, in twenty years, think back to me, or in twenty years, turn to me and kiss me….” I remember all that, and strangely, reading the book this morning, 16 years later, I might finally get it.
Friday, December 17, 2004
Getting back into the swing of it....
I finally slept (just 7 hours though) and woke up not knowing where I was. This happened to me a few times in Paris, but it is a bit disconcerting in your own apartment.
I decided that if I am going to single I have to be totally gorgeous, so first thing yesterday I had my eyebrows done. (It cracked Alison up that that was the first thing I wanted to do upon arriving home.) Maybe related or maybe not, probably not, but a woman at the party last night said she thought maybe I was eastern European based on my “accent”. Strange. At the party, a few of us got excited about starting a French conversation group. So, I might have already made some new friends. Overall, I found the party a bit intimidating – everyone was so creative! For example, the hostess left a trail of origami cranes in the building hallway to help us find the right apartment.
Yesterday was devoted primarily to getting to know Nico, Laura’s new baby, who is unbelievably beautiful. When he was first born, he looked exactly like Laura (I saw from the pictures). Now, I believe he looks like me with wide, saucer brown eyes and a skinny little neck. Since Laura and I have been friends since kindergarten, there has been plenty of time for her to collect my genetic materials making it possible for her baby to look like me.
My apartment has started to smell better, although I haven’t cleaned it or anything.
I decided that if I am going to single I have to be totally gorgeous, so first thing yesterday I had my eyebrows done. (It cracked Alison up that that was the first thing I wanted to do upon arriving home.) Maybe related or maybe not, probably not, but a woman at the party last night said she thought maybe I was eastern European based on my “accent”. Strange. At the party, a few of us got excited about starting a French conversation group. So, I might have already made some new friends. Overall, I found the party a bit intimidating – everyone was so creative! For example, the hostess left a trail of origami cranes in the building hallway to help us find the right apartment.
Yesterday was devoted primarily to getting to know Nico, Laura’s new baby, who is unbelievably beautiful. When he was first born, he looked exactly like Laura (I saw from the pictures). Now, I believe he looks like me with wide, saucer brown eyes and a skinny little neck. Since Laura and I have been friends since kindergarten, there has been plenty of time for her to collect my genetic materials making it possible for her baby to look like me.
My apartment has started to smell better, although I haven’t cleaned it or anything.
Thursday, December 16, 2004
On losing
"One Art"
by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
So many things seem filled with the intent
To be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
Of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster
Places, and names, and where it was you meant
To travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look, my last, or
Next to last, of three houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And vaster,
Some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It’s evident
The art of losing’s not too hard to master
Though it may look like (write it!) like disaster!
*****
Lost (since July 17, 2004):
-10 pounds
-2 boyfriends
-one black sock
-several nights' sleep
-my desire to live my earlier life
by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
So many things seem filled with the intent
To be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
Of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster
Places, and names, and where it was you meant
To travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look, my last, or
Next to last, of three houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And vaster,
Some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It’s evident
The art of losing’s not too hard to master
Though it may look like (write it!) like disaster!
*****
Lost (since July 17, 2004):
-10 pounds
-2 boyfriends
-one black sock
-several nights' sleep
-my desire to live my earlier life
What's good about being at home
1) being reunited with my music collection
2) being warm enough inside and out in a little cotton sweater!!!!!
3) being reunited with my books
4) waking up in the morning without greif (well, if 4 AM counts!) and seeing the sun rise over the city and the bay from my roof
5) being able to wear all my clothes, and fitting into them (and boxing away my "fat clothes")
6) my shower, which is still the best I have ever had including the one I paid for at the spa in Suisse
2) being warm enough inside and out in a little cotton sweater!!!!!
3) being reunited with my books
4) waking up in the morning without greif (well, if 4 AM counts!) and seeing the sun rise over the city and the bay from my roof
5) being able to wear all my clothes, and fitting into them (and boxing away my "fat clothes")
6) my shower, which is still the best I have ever had including the one I paid for at the spa in Suisse
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
"Home" again
After 10 legs of travel over 24 hours, I am in my little studio in SF again. I have to tell you that right this minute, it feels awful. First of all, the land use patterns and overwhelmingly auto-dominance are the biggest shock. While it is every relaxing that everyone is speaking English as it should be spoken, it also kind of like sleeping. It makes me want to get a job, and you know that that is a bad sign. I am bored already, almost to tears.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Last day in Paris
There are so many stories I haven't put on my blog. I could keep us all bored stiff for weeks. But, I am going to just tell you a few things before I leave this internet cafe for the last time. Gitte has gone home to Denmark today. Jennifer is having her eyes operated on, and I will pick her up around 5 so that she makes it home safely and she and her little girl Nel eat dinner. It feels like a good closure for this set of adventures along with the cold weather. The sun is out today, a rare event in Paris this time of year. Destiny is sending me off with a smile.
A couple nights ago I saw four men in costume, 2 santas, a bunny rabbit, and a court jester, lift up the end of their little blue car (un, deux, trois!) and move it into their parking place (which was actually just a curb corner where no other car had placed itself but where the pedestrians might also enjoy crossing the street.)
The Abesses Metro station is quite far below the surface. You have the option to take en elevator, but there are stairs too. These stairs are covered with beautiful murals of cityscapes in Montmartre, flower gardens, psychodelic abstract images, etc. (it is a long stairway, as I said!). It's a really nice touch for this historically artistic neighborhood (which is now somewhat over touristed, but that's another matter). However, unlike would happen in the states, where even the underground respects the artwork of others, people have tagged all along the murals.
Yes, all the artwork in all these wonderful museums, it is very pretty and the artist gifted. But the real work of art in Paris is the city itself. How do you consume a city? (yes, as I am an American, I am of course primarily concerned about consuming the things I love be it chocolate, a city, or a person.) The answer, I guess, is living in it, walking its streets, eating its bread.
I am coming back, so I remind myself that there is no point in having a whole emotional scene, but I can't help but feel vaguely devistated. You know I love San Francisco as much as I love anything else I can imagine, but... well... anyway, I will be back in the spring. There is no point in getting all worked up about it.
A couple nights ago I saw four men in costume, 2 santas, a bunny rabbit, and a court jester, lift up the end of their little blue car (un, deux, trois!) and move it into their parking place (which was actually just a curb corner where no other car had placed itself but where the pedestrians might also enjoy crossing the street.)
The Abesses Metro station is quite far below the surface. You have the option to take en elevator, but there are stairs too. These stairs are covered with beautiful murals of cityscapes in Montmartre, flower gardens, psychodelic abstract images, etc. (it is a long stairway, as I said!). It's a really nice touch for this historically artistic neighborhood (which is now somewhat over touristed, but that's another matter). However, unlike would happen in the states, where even the underground respects the artwork of others, people have tagged all along the murals.
Yes, all the artwork in all these wonderful museums, it is very pretty and the artist gifted. But the real work of art in Paris is the city itself. How do you consume a city? (yes, as I am an American, I am of course primarily concerned about consuming the things I love be it chocolate, a city, or a person.) The answer, I guess, is living in it, walking its streets, eating its bread.
I am coming back, so I remind myself that there is no point in having a whole emotional scene, but I can't help but feel vaguely devistated. You know I love San Francisco as much as I love anything else I can imagine, but... well... anyway, I will be back in the spring. There is no point in getting all worked up about it.
Musee d'Orsay
I imagine this trip will leave me with something like a long-term hangover, not because I have been drinking too much (tho I have) but because... it's just all been so much. So much beauty, and emotional intensity, and disappointment, and joy, and sleep, and food, and walking, and company, and solitude. I get bored easily with regular life, but I am not sure I have to stamina for much of the alternative. Maybe 6 months of each will be about right, but at what point will flitting about Europe become boring too? Yes, too much exasperation with myself too....
As you know, I have been trying to see the museums before I go. This serves multiple purposes: 1) museums are inside, and it is impossibly cold outside, 2) museums are an important part of seeing Paris, 3) good art is inspiring. Despite all my talk of the impressionist being boring, I went to the Musee d'Orsay last week. They had this really cool exhibit about light and smoke and the flow of air. In many of the pieces smoke poured from above in a portrait box, an object, with a difference shape for each box, rotated and the viewer watched the way the smoke moved around the obstruction. This was fascinating, and the most interesting part was how the smoke moved after it had passed the obstruction. This could be a lesson for story telling. The most interesting part can be after, hours or centuries, a grave event has occured.
I read this amazing book (that Juliette recommended) called "behind the scenes at the museum" which used this idea, telling the story of 4 generations of women, and ultimately explaining why the ones in the present were the way they were based on this history, but not without deeply sympathetic treatment of the previous generations. I loved it.
At the museum, I took a break for the chocolat chaud and a pastry. Except they didn't have any pastry and they tried to get me to eat a muffin. This is not the first time the French have tried to get me to eat a muffin in France, and, unless I or someone I know made it, I absolutely refuse to eat muffins in France. I will not do it! The light was dark lavender so that you could hardly tell it was day and we sat behind a huge clock through which the gray light shown.
Back in the early 1990s at Hampshire College, my painting teacher was named Reilly. He was a stout hairy man who looked a little like a hobbit, wore Birkenstocks even in the dead of New England winter exposing his grissly toe nails (that I nearly offered to cut for him!) and always accompanied by a large dog who I loved but have forgotten the name of. While it turned out that I have no natural gift for painting, and not enough patiences with myself yet to get any better, he gently taught me a few interesting things and seeing and matter, and the one that has stuck with me most is the idea to vary your brush strokes in order to indicate depth of field.
Whenever I took at paintings now, I notice how or if the artist used brush strokes to communicate her image. The artists represented in the Orsay are some of the greatest painters to ever live. However, I only noticed Van Gogh and Sisley controling their brush strokes for depth of field. Another thing I love about Van Gogh is that, while you can clearly see the images he is sharing with you, each brush stroke also looks like a colored maggot, wiggling just slightly, but alive on the canvas.
As you know, I have been trying to see the museums before I go. This serves multiple purposes: 1) museums are inside, and it is impossibly cold outside, 2) museums are an important part of seeing Paris, 3) good art is inspiring. Despite all my talk of the impressionist being boring, I went to the Musee d'Orsay last week. They had this really cool exhibit about light and smoke and the flow of air. In many of the pieces smoke poured from above in a portrait box, an object, with a difference shape for each box, rotated and the viewer watched the way the smoke moved around the obstruction. This was fascinating, and the most interesting part was how the smoke moved after it had passed the obstruction. This could be a lesson for story telling. The most interesting part can be after, hours or centuries, a grave event has occured.
I read this amazing book (that Juliette recommended) called "behind the scenes at the museum" which used this idea, telling the story of 4 generations of women, and ultimately explaining why the ones in the present were the way they were based on this history, but not without deeply sympathetic treatment of the previous generations. I loved it.
At the museum, I took a break for the chocolat chaud and a pastry. Except they didn't have any pastry and they tried to get me to eat a muffin. This is not the first time the French have tried to get me to eat a muffin in France, and, unless I or someone I know made it, I absolutely refuse to eat muffins in France. I will not do it! The light was dark lavender so that you could hardly tell it was day and we sat behind a huge clock through which the gray light shown.
Back in the early 1990s at Hampshire College, my painting teacher was named Reilly. He was a stout hairy man who looked a little like a hobbit, wore Birkenstocks even in the dead of New England winter exposing his grissly toe nails (that I nearly offered to cut for him!) and always accompanied by a large dog who I loved but have forgotten the name of. While it turned out that I have no natural gift for painting, and not enough patiences with myself yet to get any better, he gently taught me a few interesting things and seeing and matter, and the one that has stuck with me most is the idea to vary your brush strokes in order to indicate depth of field.
Whenever I took at paintings now, I notice how or if the artist used brush strokes to communicate her image. The artists represented in the Orsay are some of the greatest painters to ever live. However, I only noticed Van Gogh and Sisley controling their brush strokes for depth of field. Another thing I love about Van Gogh is that, while you can clearly see the images he is sharing with you, each brush stroke also looks like a colored maggot, wiggling just slightly, but alive on the canvas.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
On stress
I've started to received those "manage your stress over the holidays" emails (at least from my mother), and I am here to tell you that I don't feel stressed. Afterall, I am not actually doing anything. Today, I had a long fantastic brunch with Muriel (sans booze), and then promptly got on the Metro going the wrong direction. One night last week, I was sitting quietly on the couch probably drink wine, reading, and listening to low jazz when I realized I had stopped breathing. It put me into quite a panic, as I stood up, put my arms above my head and then sat down again, straight upright, trying to figure out why I forgot to breath. There was nothing blocking the passage.... it's still a mystery, but I can assure you that I am breathing now.
I stopped going to French class a while ago. On my last day there we did conditional past tense, "if I had been president of my country, I would not have attached Iraq" which, I believe, is too hard for me right now. But grammar is easy for me in theory. I struggle with vocabulary and speach (and when I do speak, the grammar comes out all wrong, I say things like "nous partir...". I need more practice.)
Anyway, the teacher asked us each to pretend we were something, the president of our country, the most beautiful woman in the world, someone who had had a happy childhood, and write the pros and cons of being that thing. However, she did not want us to say "if I had been..." but instead to write "many people would have admired me, but it would have been more difficult to choose a boyfriend." Why this was so important, I do not know, but every time I started with "if I had been..." she corrected me. Then she gave us a moment to put together a string of sentences, and during this time, she stood over me, waiting for me to write so that she could correct me, which of course made it impossible for me to think of anything to say at all. I felt tears rising in my eyes, so I decided to go to the toilettes and pull myself together. This was no reason to cry in class.
Going to the toilettes actually worked, and I returned with some ideas of about if I were French.... She still stood over me and corrected some of my spelling, but I was able to write down the things I had thought of in the bathroom. When each of us read out our lines, several other people misunderstood the assignment in the same way I had. This kind of thing happens to me alot, and I really don't understand why it is more important for them to correct me than to correct the others in class.
So, I explained this event to Gitte and she said, "it's obviously because you don't have an American accent. They think your French is really good, but you are lazy, and they are trying to make you work harder." In fact, Stephanie, my previous teacher, actually called me lazy once or twice. Alas! I wish the problem was that I am lazy. It is really just that... I was going to say the problem is that I am stupid, but that isn't the right thing to say, so I will say... I guess my french is not as good as they think it is.
I stopped going to French class a while ago. On my last day there we did conditional past tense, "if I had been president of my country, I would not have attached Iraq" which, I believe, is too hard for me right now. But grammar is easy for me in theory. I struggle with vocabulary and speach (and when I do speak, the grammar comes out all wrong, I say things like "nous partir...". I need more practice.)
Anyway, the teacher asked us each to pretend we were something, the president of our country, the most beautiful woman in the world, someone who had had a happy childhood, and write the pros and cons of being that thing. However, she did not want us to say "if I had been..." but instead to write "many people would have admired me, but it would have been more difficult to choose a boyfriend." Why this was so important, I do not know, but every time I started with "if I had been..." she corrected me. Then she gave us a moment to put together a string of sentences, and during this time, she stood over me, waiting for me to write so that she could correct me, which of course made it impossible for me to think of anything to say at all. I felt tears rising in my eyes, so I decided to go to the toilettes and pull myself together. This was no reason to cry in class.
Going to the toilettes actually worked, and I returned with some ideas of about if I were French.... She still stood over me and corrected some of my spelling, but I was able to write down the things I had thought of in the bathroom. When each of us read out our lines, several other people misunderstood the assignment in the same way I had. This kind of thing happens to me alot, and I really don't understand why it is more important for them to correct me than to correct the others in class.
So, I explained this event to Gitte and she said, "it's obviously because you don't have an American accent. They think your French is really good, but you are lazy, and they are trying to make you work harder." In fact, Stephanie, my previous teacher, actually called me lazy once or twice. Alas! I wish the problem was that I am lazy. It is really just that... I was going to say the problem is that I am stupid, but that isn't the right thing to say, so I will say... I guess my french is not as good as they think it is.
Friday, December 10, 2004
A few words on Love
Mido and Jean Pierre are having a housewarming party for their new apartment in the communist suburb of Montreuil tomorrow; so, I spent the day with Mido shopping and cleaning in preparation. She wanted me to see the food section at Au Bon Marche, which she finds extraordinary. It is beautiful, with 20 euro bags of pasta and 400 different kinds of vinegar, but I am afraid I have seen it all before at Andronicos in Berkeley or Dean and Delucca's in New York. She bought 8 different kinds of bread for the party; I really hope people come. I am sure they will.
Jean Pierre has been in Chile for work for the past week, and Mido has been a little bored I guess. Last Friday night she went online to one of those "meeting sites" and had a wonderful conversation with a young man there. (She clearly indicated her age, that she is married and has a family in her profile.) He is a graphic designer, and she wants me to meet him, but that's not the main point here.
He recently broke up with a Russian girl. They had lived together in Russia for a year. She wanted to come to France to go to University here, so they moved to Paris. After a while of living here, she stopped coming home at night some of the time. After this had happened a few times, he confronted her about it. He said "If you have met someone else, that's fine. But you should move out and take your things with you." She responded by becoming violent, and she bit him. He showed Mido the scar on his forearm. What upset him most about the experience was that while he was sincerely in love with her, he now believes that she was only using him to get to western Europe.
I don't think that is entirely fair. Who knows what happened in her heart or mind. Why do people fall in love with eachother -- I am not certain that it has anything to do with anyone's soul. (Of course, I run the risk of upsetting some of my readers by talking about this issue. I was recently discussing it with Christian, and he sucked in his cheeks for a moment and said "are you saying you were never in love with my brother?!?" Believe me, I am not saying anything like that.) I just don't believe it is as simple as being struck by lightning. Sure, that's great, but it never lasts and what is really beautiful is compatability, which probably begins best with "falling in love", and probably when emotionally-healthy and -mature people fall in love it is because they see potential long-term compatability with the other person.
Jean Pierre has been in Chile for work for the past week, and Mido has been a little bored I guess. Last Friday night she went online to one of those "meeting sites" and had a wonderful conversation with a young man there. (She clearly indicated her age, that she is married and has a family in her profile.) He is a graphic designer, and she wants me to meet him, but that's not the main point here.
He recently broke up with a Russian girl. They had lived together in Russia for a year. She wanted to come to France to go to University here, so they moved to Paris. After a while of living here, she stopped coming home at night some of the time. After this had happened a few times, he confronted her about it. He said "If you have met someone else, that's fine. But you should move out and take your things with you." She responded by becoming violent, and she bit him. He showed Mido the scar on his forearm. What upset him most about the experience was that while he was sincerely in love with her, he now believes that she was only using him to get to western Europe.
I don't think that is entirely fair. Who knows what happened in her heart or mind. Why do people fall in love with eachother -- I am not certain that it has anything to do with anyone's soul. (Of course, I run the risk of upsetting some of my readers by talking about this issue. I was recently discussing it with Christian, and he sucked in his cheeks for a moment and said "are you saying you were never in love with my brother?!?" Believe me, I am not saying anything like that.) I just don't believe it is as simple as being struck by lightning. Sure, that's great, but it never lasts and what is really beautiful is compatability, which probably begins best with "falling in love", and probably when emotionally-healthy and -mature people fall in love it is because they see potential long-term compatability with the other person.
[Wired Magazine] "Roads Gone Wild"
>From Wired, December 2004:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html
Feature: Roads Gone Wild
Hans Monderman is a traffic engineer who hates traffic signs. Oh, he can put
up with the well-placed speed limit placard or a dangerous curve warning on
a major highway, but Monderman considers most signs to be not only annoying
but downright dangerous. To him, they are an admission of failure, a sign -
literally - that a road designer somewhere hasn't done his job. "The trouble
with traffic engineers is that when there's a problem with a road, they
always try to add something," Monderman says. "To my mind, it's much better
to remove things."
Monderman is one of the leaders of a new breed of traffic engineer - equal
parts urban designer, social scientist, civil engineer, and psychologist.
The approach is radically counterintuitive: Build roads that seem dangerous,
and they'll be safer.
Monderman and I are tooling around the rural two-lane roads of northern
Holland, where he works as a road designer. He wants to show me a favorite
intersection he designed. It's a busy junction that doesn't contain a single
traffic signal, road sign, or directional marker, an approach that turns
eight decades of traditional traffic thinking on its head.
Wearing a striped tie and crisp blue blazer with shiny gold buttons,
Monderman looks like the sort of stout, reliable fellow you'd see on a
package of pipe tobacco. He's worked as a civil engineer and traffic
specialist for more than 30 years and, for a time, ran his own driving
school. Droll and reserved, he's easy to underestimate - but his ideas on
road design, safety, and city planning are being adopted from Scandinavia to
the Sunshine State.
Riding in his green Saab, we glide into Drachten, a 17th-century village
that has grown into a bustling town of more than 40,000. We pass by the
performing arts center, and suddenly, there it is: the Intersection. It's
the confluence of two busy two-lane roads that handle 20,000 cars a day,
plus thousands of bicyclists and pedestrians. Several years ago, Monderman
ripped out all the traditional instruments used by traffic engineers to
influence driver behavior - traffic lights, road markings, and some
pedestrian crossings - and in their place created a roundabout, or traffic
circle. The circle is remarkable for what it doesn't contain: signs or
signals telling drivers how fast to go, who has the right-of-way, or how to
behave. There are no lane markers or curbs separating street and sidewalk,
so it's unclear exactly where the car zone ends and the pedestrian zone
begins. To an approaching driver, the intersection is utterly ambiguous -
and that's the point.
Monderman and I stand in silence by the side of the road a few minutes,
watching the stream of motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians make their way
through the circle, a giant concrete mixing bowl of transport. Somehow it
all works. The drivers slow to gauge the intentions of crossing bicyclists
and walkers. Negotiations over right-of-way are made through fleeting eye
contact. Remarkably, traffic moves smoothly around the circle with hardly a
brake screeching, horn honking, or obscene gesture. "I love it!" Monderman
says at last. "Pedestrians and cyclists used to avoid this place, but now,
as you see, the cars look out for the cyclists, the cyclists look out for
the pedestrians, and everyone looks out for each other. You can't expect
traffic signs and street markings to encourage that sort of behavior. You
have to build it into the design of the road."
It's no surprise that the Dutch, a people renowned for social
experimentation in practically every facet of life, have embraced new ideas
in traffic management. But variations of Monderman's less-is-more approach
to traffic engineering are spreading around the globe, showing up in
Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the US.
In Denmark, the town of Christianfield stripped the traffic signs and
signals from its major intersection and cut the number of serious or fatal
accidents a year from three to zero. In England, towns in Suffolk and
Wiltshire have removed lane lines from secondary roads in an effort to slow
traffic - experts call it "psychological traffic calming." A dozen other
towns in the UK are looking to do the same. A study of center-line removal
in Wiltshire, conducted by the Transport Research Laboratory, a UK
transportation consultancy, found that drivers with no center line to guide
them drove more safely and had a 35 percent decrease in the number of
accidents.
In the US, traffic engineers are beginning to rethink the dictum that the
car is king and pedestrians are well advised to get the hell off the road.
In West Palm Beach, Florida, planners have redesigned several major streets,
removing traffic signals and turn lanes, narrowing the roadbed, and bringing
people and cars into much closer contact. The result: slower traffic, fewer
accidents, shorter trip times. "I think the future of transportation in our
cities is slowing down the roads," says Ian Lockwood, the transportation
manager for West Palm Beach during the project and now a transportation and
design consultant. "When you try to speed things up, the system tends to
fail, and then you're stuck with a design that moves traffic inefficiently
and is hostile to pedestrians and human exchange."
The common thread in the new approach to traffic engineering is a
recognition that the way you build a road affects far more than the movement
of vehicles. It determines how drivers behave on it, whether pedestrians
feel safe to walk alongside it, what kinds of businesses and housing spring
up along it. "A wide road with a lot of signs is telling a story," Monderman
says. "It's saying, go ahead, don't worry, go as fast as you want, there's
no need to pay attention to your surroundings. And that's a very dangerous
message."
We drive on to another project Monderman designed, this one in the nearby
village of Oosterwolde. What was once a conventional road junction with
traffic lights has been turned into something resembling a public square
that mixes cars, pedestrians, and cyclists. About 5,000 cars pass through
the square each day, with no serious accidents since the redesign in 1999.
"To my mind, there is one crucial test of a design such as this," Monderman
says. "Here, I will show you."
With that, Monderman tucks his hands behind his back and begins to walk into
the square - backward - straight into traffic, without being able to see
oncoming vehicles. A stream of motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians ease
around him, instinctively yielding to a man with the courage of his
convictions.
The planned suburban community of Radburn, New Jersey, founded in 1929 as "a
town for the motor age," took the segregation principle to its logical
extreme. Radburn's key design element was the strict separation of vehicles
and people; cars were afforded their own generously proportioned network,
while pedestrians were tucked safely away in residential "super blocks,"
which often terminated in quiet cul de sacs. Parents could let kids walk to
the local school without fearing that they might be mowed down in the
street. Radburn quickly became a template for other communities in the US
and Britain, and many of its underlying assumptions were written directly
into traffic codes.
The psychology of driver behavior was largely unknown. Traffic engineers
viewed vehicle movement the same way a hydraulics engineer approaches water
moving through a pipe - to increase the flow, all you have to do is make the
pipe fatter. Roads became wider and more "forgiving" - roadside trees were
cut down and other landscape elements removed in an effort to decrease
fatalities. Road signs, rather than road architecture, became the chief way
to enforce behavior. Pedestrians, meanwhile, were kept out of the traffic
network entirely or limited to defined crossing points.
The strict segregation of cars and people turned out to have unintended
consequences on towns and cities. Wide roads sliced through residential
areas, dividing neighborhoods, discouraging pedestrian activity, and
destroying the human scale of the urban environment.
The old ways of traffic engineering - build it bigger, wider, faster -
aren't going to disappear overnight. But one look at West Palm Beach
suggests an evolution is under way. When the city of 82,000 went ahead with
its plan to convert several wide thoroughfares into narrow two-way streets,
traffic slowed so much that people felt it was safe to walk there. The
increase in pedestrian traffic attracted new shops and apartment buildings.
Property values along Clematis Street, one of the town's main drags, have
more than doubled since it was reconfigured. "In West Palm, people were just
fed up with the way things were, and sometimes, that's what it takes," says
Lockwood, the town's former transportation manager. "What we really need is
a complete paradigm shift in traffic engineering and city planning to break
away from the conventional ideas that have got us in this mess. There's
still this notion that we should build big roads everywhere because the car
represents personal freedom. Well, that's bullshit. The truth is that most
people are prisoners of their cars."
Today some of the most car-oriented areas in the US are rethinking their
approaches to traffic, mainly because they have little choice. "The old way
doesn't work anymore," says Gary Toth, director of project planning and
development for the New Jersey Department of Transportation. The 2004 Urban
Mobility Report, published by the respected Texas Transportation Institute,
shows that traffic congestion is growing across the nation in towns and
cities of all sizes. The study's conclusion: It's only going to get worse.
Instead of widening congested highways, New Jersey's DOT is urging
neighboring or contiguous towns to connect their secondary streets and add
smaller centers of development, creating a series of linked minivillages
with narrow roads, rather than wide, car-choked highways strewn with malls.
"The cities that continue on their conventional path with traffic and land
use will harm themselves, because people with a choice will leave," says
Lockwood. "They'll go to places where the quality of life is better, where
there's more human exchange, where the city isn't just designed for cars.
The economy is going to follow the creative class, and they want to live in
areas that have a sense of place. That's why these new ideas have to catch
on. The folly of traditional traffic engineering is all around us."
Back in Holland, Monderman is fighting his own battle against the folly of
traditional traffic engineering, one sign at a time. "Every road tells a
story," Monderman says. "It's just that so many of our roads tell the story
poorly, or tell the wrong story."
As the new approach to traffic begins to take hold in the US, the road ahead
is unmarked and ambiguous. Hans Monderman couldn't be happier.
How to Build a Better Intersection: Chaos = Cooperation
1. Remove signs: The architecture of the road - not signs and signals -
dictates traffic flow.
2. Install art: The height of the fountain indicates how congested the
intersection is.
3. Share the spotlight: Lights illuminate not only the roadbed, but also the
pedestrian areas.
4. Do it in the road: Cafés extend to the edge of the street, further
emphasizing the idea of shared space.
5. See eye to eye: Right-of-way is negotiated by human interaction, rather
than commonly ignored signs.
6. Eliminate curbs: Instead of a raised curb, sidewalks are denoted by
texture and color.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html
Feature: Roads Gone Wild
Hans Monderman is a traffic engineer who hates traffic signs. Oh, he can put
up with the well-placed speed limit placard or a dangerous curve warning on
a major highway, but Monderman considers most signs to be not only annoying
but downright dangerous. To him, they are an admission of failure, a sign -
literally - that a road designer somewhere hasn't done his job. "The trouble
with traffic engineers is that when there's a problem with a road, they
always try to add something," Monderman says. "To my mind, it's much better
to remove things."
Monderman is one of the leaders of a new breed of traffic engineer - equal
parts urban designer, social scientist, civil engineer, and psychologist.
The approach is radically counterintuitive: Build roads that seem dangerous,
and they'll be safer.
Monderman and I are tooling around the rural two-lane roads of northern
Holland, where he works as a road designer. He wants to show me a favorite
intersection he designed. It's a busy junction that doesn't contain a single
traffic signal, road sign, or directional marker, an approach that turns
eight decades of traditional traffic thinking on its head.
Wearing a striped tie and crisp blue blazer with shiny gold buttons,
Monderman looks like the sort of stout, reliable fellow you'd see on a
package of pipe tobacco. He's worked as a civil engineer and traffic
specialist for more than 30 years and, for a time, ran his own driving
school. Droll and reserved, he's easy to underestimate - but his ideas on
road design, safety, and city planning are being adopted from Scandinavia to
the Sunshine State.
Riding in his green Saab, we glide into Drachten, a 17th-century village
that has grown into a bustling town of more than 40,000. We pass by the
performing arts center, and suddenly, there it is: the Intersection. It's
the confluence of two busy two-lane roads that handle 20,000 cars a day,
plus thousands of bicyclists and pedestrians. Several years ago, Monderman
ripped out all the traditional instruments used by traffic engineers to
influence driver behavior - traffic lights, road markings, and some
pedestrian crossings - and in their place created a roundabout, or traffic
circle. The circle is remarkable for what it doesn't contain: signs or
signals telling drivers how fast to go, who has the right-of-way, or how to
behave. There are no lane markers or curbs separating street and sidewalk,
so it's unclear exactly where the car zone ends and the pedestrian zone
begins. To an approaching driver, the intersection is utterly ambiguous -
and that's the point.
Monderman and I stand in silence by the side of the road a few minutes,
watching the stream of motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians make their way
through the circle, a giant concrete mixing bowl of transport. Somehow it
all works. The drivers slow to gauge the intentions of crossing bicyclists
and walkers. Negotiations over right-of-way are made through fleeting eye
contact. Remarkably, traffic moves smoothly around the circle with hardly a
brake screeching, horn honking, or obscene gesture. "I love it!" Monderman
says at last. "Pedestrians and cyclists used to avoid this place, but now,
as you see, the cars look out for the cyclists, the cyclists look out for
the pedestrians, and everyone looks out for each other. You can't expect
traffic signs and street markings to encourage that sort of behavior. You
have to build it into the design of the road."
It's no surprise that the Dutch, a people renowned for social
experimentation in practically every facet of life, have embraced new ideas
in traffic management. But variations of Monderman's less-is-more approach
to traffic engineering are spreading around the globe, showing up in
Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the US.
In Denmark, the town of Christianfield stripped the traffic signs and
signals from its major intersection and cut the number of serious or fatal
accidents a year from three to zero. In England, towns in Suffolk and
Wiltshire have removed lane lines from secondary roads in an effort to slow
traffic - experts call it "psychological traffic calming." A dozen other
towns in the UK are looking to do the same. A study of center-line removal
in Wiltshire, conducted by the Transport Research Laboratory, a UK
transportation consultancy, found that drivers with no center line to guide
them drove more safely and had a 35 percent decrease in the number of
accidents.
In the US, traffic engineers are beginning to rethink the dictum that the
car is king and pedestrians are well advised to get the hell off the road.
In West Palm Beach, Florida, planners have redesigned several major streets,
removing traffic signals and turn lanes, narrowing the roadbed, and bringing
people and cars into much closer contact. The result: slower traffic, fewer
accidents, shorter trip times. "I think the future of transportation in our
cities is slowing down the roads," says Ian Lockwood, the transportation
manager for West Palm Beach during the project and now a transportation and
design consultant. "When you try to speed things up, the system tends to
fail, and then you're stuck with a design that moves traffic inefficiently
and is hostile to pedestrians and human exchange."
The common thread in the new approach to traffic engineering is a
recognition that the way you build a road affects far more than the movement
of vehicles. It determines how drivers behave on it, whether pedestrians
feel safe to walk alongside it, what kinds of businesses and housing spring
up along it. "A wide road with a lot of signs is telling a story," Monderman
says. "It's saying, go ahead, don't worry, go as fast as you want, there's
no need to pay attention to your surroundings. And that's a very dangerous
message."
We drive on to another project Monderman designed, this one in the nearby
village of Oosterwolde. What was once a conventional road junction with
traffic lights has been turned into something resembling a public square
that mixes cars, pedestrians, and cyclists. About 5,000 cars pass through
the square each day, with no serious accidents since the redesign in 1999.
"To my mind, there is one crucial test of a design such as this," Monderman
says. "Here, I will show you."
With that, Monderman tucks his hands behind his back and begins to walk into
the square - backward - straight into traffic, without being able to see
oncoming vehicles. A stream of motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians ease
around him, instinctively yielding to a man with the courage of his
convictions.
The planned suburban community of Radburn, New Jersey, founded in 1929 as "a
town for the motor age," took the segregation principle to its logical
extreme. Radburn's key design element was the strict separation of vehicles
and people; cars were afforded their own generously proportioned network,
while pedestrians were tucked safely away in residential "super blocks,"
which often terminated in quiet cul de sacs. Parents could let kids walk to
the local school without fearing that they might be mowed down in the
street. Radburn quickly became a template for other communities in the US
and Britain, and many of its underlying assumptions were written directly
into traffic codes.
The psychology of driver behavior was largely unknown. Traffic engineers
viewed vehicle movement the same way a hydraulics engineer approaches water
moving through a pipe - to increase the flow, all you have to do is make the
pipe fatter. Roads became wider and more "forgiving" - roadside trees were
cut down and other landscape elements removed in an effort to decrease
fatalities. Road signs, rather than road architecture, became the chief way
to enforce behavior. Pedestrians, meanwhile, were kept out of the traffic
network entirely or limited to defined crossing points.
The strict segregation of cars and people turned out to have unintended
consequences on towns and cities. Wide roads sliced through residential
areas, dividing neighborhoods, discouraging pedestrian activity, and
destroying the human scale of the urban environment.
The old ways of traffic engineering - build it bigger, wider, faster -
aren't going to disappear overnight. But one look at West Palm Beach
suggests an evolution is under way. When the city of 82,000 went ahead with
its plan to convert several wide thoroughfares into narrow two-way streets,
traffic slowed so much that people felt it was safe to walk there. The
increase in pedestrian traffic attracted new shops and apartment buildings.
Property values along Clematis Street, one of the town's main drags, have
more than doubled since it was reconfigured. "In West Palm, people were just
fed up with the way things were, and sometimes, that's what it takes," says
Lockwood, the town's former transportation manager. "What we really need is
a complete paradigm shift in traffic engineering and city planning to break
away from the conventional ideas that have got us in this mess. There's
still this notion that we should build big roads everywhere because the car
represents personal freedom. Well, that's bullshit. The truth is that most
people are prisoners of their cars."
Today some of the most car-oriented areas in the US are rethinking their
approaches to traffic, mainly because they have little choice. "The old way
doesn't work anymore," says Gary Toth, director of project planning and
development for the New Jersey Department of Transportation. The 2004 Urban
Mobility Report, published by the respected Texas Transportation Institute,
shows that traffic congestion is growing across the nation in towns and
cities of all sizes. The study's conclusion: It's only going to get worse.
Instead of widening congested highways, New Jersey's DOT is urging
neighboring or contiguous towns to connect their secondary streets and add
smaller centers of development, creating a series of linked minivillages
with narrow roads, rather than wide, car-choked highways strewn with malls.
"The cities that continue on their conventional path with traffic and land
use will harm themselves, because people with a choice will leave," says
Lockwood. "They'll go to places where the quality of life is better, where
there's more human exchange, where the city isn't just designed for cars.
The economy is going to follow the creative class, and they want to live in
areas that have a sense of place. That's why these new ideas have to catch
on. The folly of traditional traffic engineering is all around us."
Back in Holland, Monderman is fighting his own battle against the folly of
traditional traffic engineering, one sign at a time. "Every road tells a
story," Monderman says. "It's just that so many of our roads tell the story
poorly, or tell the wrong story."
As the new approach to traffic begins to take hold in the US, the road ahead
is unmarked and ambiguous. Hans Monderman couldn't be happier.
How to Build a Better Intersection: Chaos = Cooperation
1. Remove signs: The architecture of the road - not signs and signals -
dictates traffic flow.
2. Install art: The height of the fountain indicates how congested the
intersection is.
3. Share the spotlight: Lights illuminate not only the roadbed, but also the
pedestrian areas.
4. Do it in the road: Cafés extend to the edge of the street, further
emphasizing the idea of shared space.
5. See eye to eye: Right-of-way is negotiated by human interaction, rather
than commonly ignored signs.
6. Eliminate curbs: Instead of a raised curb, sidewalks are denoted by
texture and color.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Taboo
The internet cafe is freezing bc the door is broken so it must stay either open or closed. Considering that I would prefer not to sleep here, I guess I am glad that it is open. Jennifer and I had a fantastic lunch at one of the places that the Poiriers recommend in the neighborhood, including the obligatory wine, which means that I slept the rest of the afternoon. I still feel like I am encased in led.
I am used to days like today. We tried to go to an art exhibition, but they would only allow us to enter at 1 PM. I suggested the Orsay or the Louvre as an alternative, but by the time we got to the Louvre, we were so cold a hot chocolate seemed like a good idea. By the time we finished our hot chocolate it was 11:30, not enough time to see the Louvre before lunch. So, instead we went shopping at BHV.
I've been reading Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik. He writes about Paris exactly as I would if he hadn't already done it. Instead of making me want to befriend him, in this case I have decided that I hate him. Last night I read this hilarious section on bay-ash-vay (BHV) and how that couple kissing in front of it in the photo taken by Robert Doisneau are not kissing out of any sort of passion but instead bc they have finally gotten out of the store.
I bought Taboo (in French of course), as I have been lusting for it, and Jennifer bought a beautiful new purse. The morning was finally deemed a sucess. Then there was the magnificant lunch, and that's the end of that little story. Thanks for listening.
Last night I saw some local bands at a small club with Pierre. The first was led by an would-be-very-sexy young thing in a nipply white tank top (no bra of course), army capri pants, and lace-up boots with tiny tiny spike heals. Her eyes were black and her hair platnum blond, and it was impossible to tell which was closer to natural. She performed like a cheerleader and had a drummer, a basist and a guitarist, all boys in tight army fatigues. It was some kind of heavy-metal influence garage band, which I realized when they covered "smells like teen spirit" we have called grunge for the last 15+ years. Her voice was not melotic, but they wrote their songs and some of them were quite catchy.
The second musician was a friend of Pierre's from the slam poetry scene that he is very involved with here. Apparently this guy organizes much of the scene, and Pierre called him its leader. He projected japanese cartoon pornography onto the background and his supporting musicians and apparently sang entirely about sex (of course, I can understand almost nothing of the lyrics, but Pierre kindly translated for me). He sees singing about sex as a political issue -- sex should be more openly part of mainstream society. He himself looked a bit like one of the bad kids on the Simpsons.
On the walk back to the Metro, after the music was finished, we discussed this issue of sex and society. I am not as articulate as I would like to be sometimes, but I don't find most French women particularly sexually empowered. Post feminism has no place in a society where feminism has not yet arrived. In other words, if there are no women in powerful/important positions in the society, how can they use their attractiveness to succeed? Likewise, French women tend to dress very elegantly, of course, but I don't get the sense that they do it for themselves. Gopnik actually discusses this too -- you don't see here the Hunter College (or New College, if you are in San Francisco; Gopnik is from NYC) professors in their sexy black dresses and fishnet stockings. I am still putting these ideas together, but Pierre disagreed with me on this issue entirely. He said he had lots of female friends who are very sexually free, which of course, was not at all what I was trying to talk about. Alas!
Have we already identified what post-post-feminism will be?
I am used to days like today. We tried to go to an art exhibition, but they would only allow us to enter at 1 PM. I suggested the Orsay or the Louvre as an alternative, but by the time we got to the Louvre, we were so cold a hot chocolate seemed like a good idea. By the time we finished our hot chocolate it was 11:30, not enough time to see the Louvre before lunch. So, instead we went shopping at BHV.
I've been reading Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik. He writes about Paris exactly as I would if he hadn't already done it. Instead of making me want to befriend him, in this case I have decided that I hate him. Last night I read this hilarious section on bay-ash-vay (BHV) and how that couple kissing in front of it in the photo taken by Robert Doisneau are not kissing out of any sort of passion but instead bc they have finally gotten out of the store.
I bought Taboo (in French of course), as I have been lusting for it, and Jennifer bought a beautiful new purse. The morning was finally deemed a sucess. Then there was the magnificant lunch, and that's the end of that little story. Thanks for listening.
Last night I saw some local bands at a small club with Pierre. The first was led by an would-be-very-sexy young thing in a nipply white tank top (no bra of course), army capri pants, and lace-up boots with tiny tiny spike heals. Her eyes were black and her hair platnum blond, and it was impossible to tell which was closer to natural. She performed like a cheerleader and had a drummer, a basist and a guitarist, all boys in tight army fatigues. It was some kind of heavy-metal influence garage band, which I realized when they covered "smells like teen spirit" we have called grunge for the last 15+ years. Her voice was not melotic, but they wrote their songs and some of them were quite catchy.
The second musician was a friend of Pierre's from the slam poetry scene that he is very involved with here. Apparently this guy organizes much of the scene, and Pierre called him its leader. He projected japanese cartoon pornography onto the background and his supporting musicians and apparently sang entirely about sex (of course, I can understand almost nothing of the lyrics, but Pierre kindly translated for me). He sees singing about sex as a political issue -- sex should be more openly part of mainstream society. He himself looked a bit like one of the bad kids on the Simpsons.
On the walk back to the Metro, after the music was finished, we discussed this issue of sex and society. I am not as articulate as I would like to be sometimes, but I don't find most French women particularly sexually empowered. Post feminism has no place in a society where feminism has not yet arrived. In other words, if there are no women in powerful/important positions in the society, how can they use their attractiveness to succeed? Likewise, French women tend to dress very elegantly, of course, but I don't get the sense that they do it for themselves. Gopnik actually discusses this too -- you don't see here the Hunter College (or New College, if you are in San Francisco; Gopnik is from NYC) professors in their sexy black dresses and fishnet stockings. I am still putting these ideas together, but Pierre disagreed with me on this issue entirely. He said he had lots of female friends who are very sexually free, which of course, was not at all what I was trying to talk about. Alas!
Have we already identified what post-post-feminism will be?
Shopping and our lovely 2-party system
Subject: The politics of shopping
With the holidays upon us, some of us might wish to be mindful of whom we patronize relative to their 2000 Election Cycle political donations, as reported by the Center for Responsive Politics.
General Shopping:
Price Club/Costco donated $225K, of which 99% went to democrats;
WalMart, $467K, 97% to republicans;
K-Mart, $524K, 86% to republicans;
Home Depot, $298K, 89% to republicans;
Target, $226K, 70% to republicans;
Circuit City Stores, $261K, 95% to republicans;
Rite Aid, $517K, 60% to democrats;
Magla Products (Stanley tools, Mr. Clean), $22K, 100% to democrats;
3M Co., $281K, 87% to republicans;
Hallmark Cards, $319K, 92% to republicans;
Amway, $391K, 100% republican;
Kohler Co. (plumbing fixtures), $283K, 100% republicans;
Warnaco (undergarments), $55K, 73% to democrats;
B.F. Goodrich (tires), $215K, 97% to republicans;
Proctor &Gamble, $243K, 79% to republicans;
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, $153K, 99% to democrats;
Estee Lauder, $448K, 95% to democrats;
Guess ? Inc., $145K, 98% to democrats;
Calvin Klein, $78K, 100% to democrats;
Liz Claiborne, Inc., $34K, 97% to democrats;
Levi Straus, $26K, 97% to democrats;
Olan Mills, $175K, 99% to democrats.
Spirits:
Coors, $174K, 92% to republicans; (also Budweiser - sd)
Gallo Winery, $337K, 95% to democrats;
Brown-Forman Corp. (Southern Comfort, Jack Daniels, Bushmills, Korbel wines - as well as Lennox China, Dansk, Gorham Silver), $644K, 80% to republicans;
Southern Wine &Spirits, $213K, 73% to democrats;
Joseph E. Seagrams &Sons (includes beverage business, plus considerable media interests), $2M+, 67% democratic;
Restaurants/food companies:
Pilgrim's Pride Corp. (chicken), $366K, 100% republican;
Outback Steakhouse, $641K, 95% republican;
Sonic Corporation, $83K, 98% democrat;
Tricon Global Restaurants (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), $133K, 87% republican;
Brinker International (Maggiano's, Brinker Cafe, Chili's, On the Border,Macaroni Grill, Crazymel's, Corner Baker, EatZis), $242K, 83% republican;
Triarc Companies (Arby's, T.J. Cinnamon's, Pasta Connections), $112K, 96% democrats;
Waffle House, $279K, 100% republican;
McDonald's Corp., $197K, 86% republican;
Darden Restaurants (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Smokey Bones, Bahama Breeze), $121K, 89% republican;
Hotels:
Hyatt Corporation, $187K, 80% to democrats;
Mariott International, $323K, 81% to republicans;
Holiday Inns, $38K, 71% to republicans.
With the holidays upon us, some of us might wish to be mindful of whom we patronize relative to their 2000 Election Cycle political donations, as reported by the Center for Responsive Politics.
General Shopping:
Price Club/Costco donated $225K, of which 99% went to democrats;
WalMart, $467K, 97% to republicans;
K-Mart, $524K, 86% to republicans;
Home Depot, $298K, 89% to republicans;
Target, $226K, 70% to republicans;
Circuit City Stores, $261K, 95% to republicans;
Rite Aid, $517K, 60% to democrats;
Magla Products (Stanley tools, Mr. Clean), $22K, 100% to democrats;
3M Co., $281K, 87% to republicans;
Hallmark Cards, $319K, 92% to republicans;
Amway, $391K, 100% republican;
Kohler Co. (plumbing fixtures), $283K, 100% republicans;
Warnaco (undergarments), $55K, 73% to democrats;
B.F. Goodrich (tires), $215K, 97% to republicans;
Proctor &Gamble, $243K, 79% to republicans;
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, $153K, 99% to democrats;
Estee Lauder, $448K, 95% to democrats;
Guess ? Inc., $145K, 98% to democrats;
Calvin Klein, $78K, 100% to democrats;
Liz Claiborne, Inc., $34K, 97% to democrats;
Levi Straus, $26K, 97% to democrats;
Olan Mills, $175K, 99% to democrats.
Spirits:
Coors, $174K, 92% to republicans; (also Budweiser - sd)
Gallo Winery, $337K, 95% to democrats;
Brown-Forman Corp. (Southern Comfort, Jack Daniels, Bushmills, Korbel wines - as well as Lennox China, Dansk, Gorham Silver), $644K, 80% to republicans;
Southern Wine &Spirits, $213K, 73% to democrats;
Joseph E. Seagrams &Sons (includes beverage business, plus considerable media interests), $2M+, 67% democratic;
Restaurants/food companies:
Pilgrim's Pride Corp. (chicken), $366K, 100% republican;
Outback Steakhouse, $641K, 95% republican;
Sonic Corporation, $83K, 98% democrat;
Tricon Global Restaurants (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), $133K, 87% republican;
Brinker International (Maggiano's, Brinker Cafe, Chili's, On the Border,Macaroni Grill, Crazymel's, Corner Baker, EatZis), $242K, 83% republican;
Triarc Companies (Arby's, T.J. Cinnamon's, Pasta Connections), $112K, 96% democrats;
Waffle House, $279K, 100% republican;
McDonald's Corp., $197K, 86% republican;
Darden Restaurants (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Smokey Bones, Bahama Breeze), $121K, 89% republican;
Hotels:
Hyatt Corporation, $187K, 80% to democrats;
Mariott International, $323K, 81% to republicans;
Holiday Inns, $38K, 71% to republicans.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
xmas decorations and the electric company
Paris is fun at xmas time. All the streets and many of the stores are lit up in lively ways, colors, shapes, small cities of blinking lights. I am not sure if it is the business associations or the city responsible for all these festive decorations, but knowing the French, my money is on the local government. Unlike what I am used to, until my walk to the internet cafe tonight, I had not yet seen a decorated home. But just now I saw a sort of xmas twig in someone's window across the tiny Montmartre street. Maybe Americans live there, but no one else in this catholic country seems to have the slightest interest in decorating their home so that it is visable from the outside.
I met Mido for lunch today. On my way over, she called to warn me that there was a protest outside her office building. She works for the electric company (and defends nuclear power). However, we think the protest was about benefits -- the workers are upset bc they don't get 100% of their salary after retirement or maybe because when they sell their homes to non-EDF employees (who don't get free electricity like EDF employees do) their adaptations so that everything is electric powered actually reduces the property value. You can imagine that I do a lot of smiling, lips closed and wide eyed, when she tells me these things.
The office was completely locked down. No one was allowed to enter or exit. About 25 protesters had built a very small fire in front of the main entrance. I called her on my mobile phone to explain that I had arrived, but could not enter. However, my battery then died. We could wave at each other through the window, but not actually speak. The crowd quickly dispersed and they put out the little fire without much ado. After a short while, they started permitting people to leave the building, and about 5 minutes later, people were allowed to enter it. It was 12:20 (we had arranged to meet at noon).
Mido needed to check me in at the front desk, and once we found her on her mobile phone again, I was able to enter. She had gone ahead to the cafeteria and began her lunch. When I told Jennifer this story, she said "and we wonder why we are tired all the time!" France seems so familiar in so many ways, but the culture, at least to me and Jennifer, is really different.
I met Mido for lunch today. On my way over, she called to warn me that there was a protest outside her office building. She works for the electric company (and defends nuclear power). However, we think the protest was about benefits -- the workers are upset bc they don't get 100% of their salary after retirement or maybe because when they sell their homes to non-EDF employees (who don't get free electricity like EDF employees do) their adaptations so that everything is electric powered actually reduces the property value. You can imagine that I do a lot of smiling, lips closed and wide eyed, when she tells me these things.
The office was completely locked down. No one was allowed to enter or exit. About 25 protesters had built a very small fire in front of the main entrance. I called her on my mobile phone to explain that I had arrived, but could not enter. However, my battery then died. We could wave at each other through the window, but not actually speak. The crowd quickly dispersed and they put out the little fire without much ado. After a short while, they started permitting people to leave the building, and about 5 minutes later, people were allowed to enter it. It was 12:20 (we had arranged to meet at noon).
Mido needed to check me in at the front desk, and once we found her on her mobile phone again, I was able to enter. She had gone ahead to the cafeteria and began her lunch. When I told Jennifer this story, she said "and we wonder why we are tired all the time!" France seems so familiar in so many ways, but the culture, at least to me and Jennifer, is really different.
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Free museum day
Last sunday was free museum day, and given my tight purse strings these days, I planned to take full advantage of it. The day got off to a slow start. I got out of bed at 10 instead of the planned 9, but I managed to get out of the house relatively quickly and went directly to Musee d'Orsay. Imagine for a moment if all of the Star Wars movies were released at the same time, with the same amount of hype, for the first time. What you are imagining, with some slight demographic adjustments, resembled the line in front of the Orsay. I've seen the museum a hundred times, and I find the impressionists a bit boring anymore. Plus, I can go later in the week. So, needless to say, I quickly opted for Plan B.
The Delacroix museum wasn't too far from the Orsay. I walked right in with no line only to find that all the lovely pictures of the naked women in Turkish baths were replaced with paintings by another man altogether, of horses, battles, and people on horses heading into battle. The most hilarious of them, to me, was a portrait of a white horses head, as if it were a beautiful lady. I couldn't help but wonder if this man loved his wife (if he had one) as much as he clearly loved that horse.
So, I thought I had learned my lesson to stick with the smaller museums to avoid lines. I am nothing if not open to new experiences, and my little book listed plenty of small museum featuring some obscure artist not mentioned in any of my art history classes in college. I began my hike south towards the Musee Hebert because it looked like it was close by. Along the way, of course, I was distracted by the farmers' market. It was gorgeous and amazing, as farmers' markets tend to be, and made me feel deeply sad for days of farmers' markets gone by when we bought peaches and the weather was better, etc. When I finally found the elegant building which housed the Musee Hebert, it was closed for "work" (literal translation).
I am always delighted when I can use my Carte Orange unexpectedly -- I rode the metro back towards to center of Paris and began looking for the Conciergerie where kings lived and lots of people were imprisoned before being guiotined (sp?). The most famous of which is Marie Antoinette, whose table napkin, among other things, is on display. (It's just a plain white napkin like you might use in a decent restaurant.) They have several mediocre wax models, the ceiling is volted in the usual gorgeous manner, and I am not surprised that after 400 visits to Paris, I only just saw this site.
I was torn about whether to give the Louvre a try or go directly to the Centre Pompidu (which closes much later than the others) but my feet were already rather tired, and I was sure there would be a long line at the Louvre. I proceeded to the Pompidu to see their recent acquisitions and perminant collection. First, I must observe that the Pompidu restaurant looks totally burning man inspired. Strange, silver, asymetrical "pod people" structures are placed throughout the large room. A single red rose decorates each white plastic table, and elegantly-dressed, long-fingered and -limbed patrons chat pleasantly below techno music.
I don't know what art is supposed to be about, or what it is about when it moves me, but the recent acquisitions are all about color, light, material, time, sound, and space -- the fusion of technology and its subsequent consciousness into a 4-walled gallery space. Maybe art doesn't have to be about anything. Maybe it can just be nice to look it or emotionally evocative. These thoughts bothered me for some time before I realized that all this contemporary art is just too self-conscious for my tastes. ("It depends on what your definition of 'is' is.") And actually, the architecture and graphic design stuff was fascinating. Maybe art needs limits, a tether, for me to be able to relate to it, whether the tether is convention or use.
Upstairs (and there is not escalator) are the older, better works. So, you have to work for it, and might not even have energy for it by the time you find it anyway. A man held his baby up to a bronze scupture of a woman's face (Braque). The baby laughed and laughed, bring light into the room, and I thought to myself, that baby really likes Braque. Later, I examined the sculpture more closely only to realize that the baby was laughing at his and his father's reflection in the side of the shiny bronze, not at anything about the sculpture itself.
After about 3 hours at the Pompidu (and 8 hours museuming) I felt myself losing touch with reality (more even than usual!). For example, let's say there was an attractive young man at the coat check. I imagined how we might meet and fall in love. Our wedding was beautiful in the Swiss Alps (because that is where his mother was born). But shortly afterwards, just long enough for me to become pregnant, he runs off with an airline stewartess. Darn him. I found myself furious while examining Giocometti. (Just an example, of course -- sorry, I crack myself up.)
The Delacroix museum wasn't too far from the Orsay. I walked right in with no line only to find that all the lovely pictures of the naked women in Turkish baths were replaced with paintings by another man altogether, of horses, battles, and people on horses heading into battle. The most hilarious of them, to me, was a portrait of a white horses head, as if it were a beautiful lady. I couldn't help but wonder if this man loved his wife (if he had one) as much as he clearly loved that horse.
So, I thought I had learned my lesson to stick with the smaller museums to avoid lines. I am nothing if not open to new experiences, and my little book listed plenty of small museum featuring some obscure artist not mentioned in any of my art history classes in college. I began my hike south towards the Musee Hebert because it looked like it was close by. Along the way, of course, I was distracted by the farmers' market. It was gorgeous and amazing, as farmers' markets tend to be, and made me feel deeply sad for days of farmers' markets gone by when we bought peaches and the weather was better, etc. When I finally found the elegant building which housed the Musee Hebert, it was closed for "work" (literal translation).
I am always delighted when I can use my Carte Orange unexpectedly -- I rode the metro back towards to center of Paris and began looking for the Conciergerie where kings lived and lots of people were imprisoned before being guiotined (sp?). The most famous of which is Marie Antoinette, whose table napkin, among other things, is on display. (It's just a plain white napkin like you might use in a decent restaurant.) They have several mediocre wax models, the ceiling is volted in the usual gorgeous manner, and I am not surprised that after 400 visits to Paris, I only just saw this site.
I was torn about whether to give the Louvre a try or go directly to the Centre Pompidu (which closes much later than the others) but my feet were already rather tired, and I was sure there would be a long line at the Louvre. I proceeded to the Pompidu to see their recent acquisitions and perminant collection. First, I must observe that the Pompidu restaurant looks totally burning man inspired. Strange, silver, asymetrical "pod people" structures are placed throughout the large room. A single red rose decorates each white plastic table, and elegantly-dressed, long-fingered and -limbed patrons chat pleasantly below techno music.
I don't know what art is supposed to be about, or what it is about when it moves me, but the recent acquisitions are all about color, light, material, time, sound, and space -- the fusion of technology and its subsequent consciousness into a 4-walled gallery space. Maybe art doesn't have to be about anything. Maybe it can just be nice to look it or emotionally evocative. These thoughts bothered me for some time before I realized that all this contemporary art is just too self-conscious for my tastes. ("It depends on what your definition of 'is' is.") And actually, the architecture and graphic design stuff was fascinating. Maybe art needs limits, a tether, for me to be able to relate to it, whether the tether is convention or use.
Upstairs (and there is not escalator) are the older, better works. So, you have to work for it, and might not even have energy for it by the time you find it anyway. A man held his baby up to a bronze scupture of a woman's face (Braque). The baby laughed and laughed, bring light into the room, and I thought to myself, that baby really likes Braque. Later, I examined the sculpture more closely only to realize that the baby was laughing at his and his father's reflection in the side of the shiny bronze, not at anything about the sculpture itself.
After about 3 hours at the Pompidu (and 8 hours museuming) I felt myself losing touch with reality (more even than usual!). For example, let's say there was an attractive young man at the coat check. I imagined how we might meet and fall in love. Our wedding was beautiful in the Swiss Alps (because that is where his mother was born). But shortly afterwards, just long enough for me to become pregnant, he runs off with an airline stewartess. Darn him. I found myself furious while examining Giocometti. (Just an example, of course -- sorry, I crack myself up.)
The Sewer and Intuition
I've been trying to see the Paris sewer for I don't know how many years, and today I finally saw it. I imagined something like the underground resevoir in Istanbul (with gorgeous corinthian columns and sculptures into the walls), but it is much more utilitarian than that and not in the least bit gorgeous. It smells terrible, loud water rushes under your feed, and they have explanatory boards describing the history of water management in Paris and how it works now. Jennifer (who didn't come with me) was concerned that she might feel claustrophobic there, and I must admit to having a bit of an anxiety attack not from claustrophobia, but from the noise and the smell. In any case, I am glad I finally saw it, as I have never seen a working sewer before.
I've been trying to eat a chocolate crepe every day I have remaining here in Paris. I don't remember what Ti Cous charges for them in SF, but they certainly are not on every street corner (I don't get to 16th and Valencia every day!).
Yesterday was dominated primarily by a long walk through the city and numerous telephone conversations with various people, so there isn't much of interest to report. One thing I would like to share with you is something I have been wondering about intuition. Recently, my intuition was proven completely wrong about something. No matter what you might think from your personal experience with me, from my perspective this have actually never happened before (except maybe about Gore becoming president, but I think in that case my intuition confused being president with winning the election). I have discussed this at length with several of my friends and my mother and the only realistic explanation (which doesn't really make sense in the context of what intuition is actually) is that intuition doesn't work across cultures. This is Gitte's theory, and I consider her an expert on cross-cultural relations. So, I guess I am wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience with cross-cultural intuition...?
I've been trying to eat a chocolate crepe every day I have remaining here in Paris. I don't remember what Ti Cous charges for them in SF, but they certainly are not on every street corner (I don't get to 16th and Valencia every day!).
Yesterday was dominated primarily by a long walk through the city and numerous telephone conversations with various people, so there isn't much of interest to report. One thing I would like to share with you is something I have been wondering about intuition. Recently, my intuition was proven completely wrong about something. No matter what you might think from your personal experience with me, from my perspective this have actually never happened before (except maybe about Gore becoming president, but I think in that case my intuition confused being president with winning the election). I have discussed this at length with several of my friends and my mother and the only realistic explanation (which doesn't really make sense in the context of what intuition is actually) is that intuition doesn't work across cultures. This is Gitte's theory, and I consider her an expert on cross-cultural relations. So, I guess I am wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience with cross-cultural intuition...?
Saturday, December 04, 2004
[Paris] An ordinary day
It's another gray, dark day here in Paris. In the diffused light, you wouldn't know if it was dawn or dusk or just another winter day. I didn't sleep terribly late today, but I use the dark weather as an excuse to fritter my time away over decaf, at the computer, thinking my melocholy little thoughts.
The night before last I went to a pub with Tina and some of her friends. A woman she met at a party was playing guitar -- live, free music. They played a lot of tasteful covers, but I get tired of hearing the same songs over and over. I wish people would write their own music. That said, they have beautiful voices.
I met a few more of Tina's friends, talked about planning with Chris, shared stories about struggling with the language, etc. I nearly forgot my point on this topic, but it is that I can't believe how many Americans there are here. I hear more American spoken walking down the street than I do French. The singers were American, the company, the bar tenders, the patrons.... How am I supposed to start understanding French when spoken if absolutely everyone I encounter either speaks Engish as their native language or speaks it nearly perfectly. Meanwhile, I can say I am fine and that I would like a little more wine, please. it turns out I have been asking for the toilettes incorrectly all these years.
Last night I had Gitte over for dinner. A few days ago I bought a kilo (2.21 lbs) of pasta for 90 cents. not sure what i was thinking bc I will have to eat pasta for 3 meals a day for my final 2 weeks in France, the culinary capital of the world - so they like to tell you anyway - in order to finish this bag of pasta. Anyway, that's what I cooked for dinner, and for a very small girl, she sure ate a lot of it, making me think that it didn't suck.
Gitte is from Denmark. A Danish family adopted her from South Korea. So, strangers have trouble understanding her cultural background from looking at her. She says she has no interest in finding her birth family because they won't even have a language in common and the culture is so different, but she does want to go to Korea just to see the country. Her sister was adopted from a Danish birthfamily, and she found them. It sounded a little strange -- she actually has siblings who are older than she is, from the same parents. Her birthmother rejected her at first, but she did a lot more research to find her siblings. They are younger and older, and they did not know about her. She found them by calling everyone in the phone book with the same last name, eventually reaching an uncle who agreed to help her, but he didn't know exactly where to find the siblings, only their names and what part of Copenhagen they live in. So, once the siblings knew about her, they confronted their mother, who still didn't want to meet the daughter she gave up, but her new husband did. By the time the whole family was getting together to meet Gitte's sister, the birthmother agreed to meet her too bc she didn't want to be left out. Happy ending.
Every day in Paris is lifechangingly beautiful. Yesterday I wanted to go to see the Musee des Plans-reliefs, "a unique collection of models of French cities and their suurounding countryside commissioned by the state from Louis XIV to Napoleon III." But the sun was out and the sky clear and blue (none of the usual gorgeous parisien clouds) and I couldn't bring myself to go underground and get on the Metro for fear of missing some of it. So, I walked and walked and walked, observing the bright slanted light and every masterpiece building lined up against the next. I saw some really wonderful things, including:
* a woman in a full-length fur coat rollerblading to do her shopping.
* fake palm trees covered in fake snow decorating a cafe.
* a couple walking down the narrow winding street, laughing incredibly goofy laughs, these laughs bouncing off the stone urban canyon and flowing away light water (and bringing tears to my eyes).
The ticket to the museum turned out the bundled with the military museum and 10 euros, so I decided I will check it out when I come back in the spring one of the first Sundays of the month then most museums are free. Tomorrow is reserved for the Pompidu Centre, Musee d'Orsay, and maybe the Delacroix museum if I have time.
The night before last I went to a pub with Tina and some of her friends. A woman she met at a party was playing guitar -- live, free music. They played a lot of tasteful covers, but I get tired of hearing the same songs over and over. I wish people would write their own music. That said, they have beautiful voices.
I met a few more of Tina's friends, talked about planning with Chris, shared stories about struggling with the language, etc. I nearly forgot my point on this topic, but it is that I can't believe how many Americans there are here. I hear more American spoken walking down the street than I do French. The singers were American, the company, the bar tenders, the patrons.... How am I supposed to start understanding French when spoken if absolutely everyone I encounter either speaks Engish as their native language or speaks it nearly perfectly. Meanwhile, I can say I am fine and that I would like a little more wine, please. it turns out I have been asking for the toilettes incorrectly all these years.
Last night I had Gitte over for dinner. A few days ago I bought a kilo (2.21 lbs) of pasta for 90 cents. not sure what i was thinking bc I will have to eat pasta for 3 meals a day for my final 2 weeks in France, the culinary capital of the world - so they like to tell you anyway - in order to finish this bag of pasta. Anyway, that's what I cooked for dinner, and for a very small girl, she sure ate a lot of it, making me think that it didn't suck.
Gitte is from Denmark. A Danish family adopted her from South Korea. So, strangers have trouble understanding her cultural background from looking at her. She says she has no interest in finding her birth family because they won't even have a language in common and the culture is so different, but she does want to go to Korea just to see the country. Her sister was adopted from a Danish birthfamily, and she found them. It sounded a little strange -- she actually has siblings who are older than she is, from the same parents. Her birthmother rejected her at first, but she did a lot more research to find her siblings. They are younger and older, and they did not know about her. She found them by calling everyone in the phone book with the same last name, eventually reaching an uncle who agreed to help her, but he didn't know exactly where to find the siblings, only their names and what part of Copenhagen they live in. So, once the siblings knew about her, they confronted their mother, who still didn't want to meet the daughter she gave up, but her new husband did. By the time the whole family was getting together to meet Gitte's sister, the birthmother agreed to meet her too bc she didn't want to be left out. Happy ending.
Every day in Paris is lifechangingly beautiful. Yesterday I wanted to go to see the Musee des Plans-reliefs, "a unique collection of models of French cities and their suurounding countryside commissioned by the state from Louis XIV to Napoleon III." But the sun was out and the sky clear and blue (none of the usual gorgeous parisien clouds) and I couldn't bring myself to go underground and get on the Metro for fear of missing some of it. So, I walked and walked and walked, observing the bright slanted light and every masterpiece building lined up against the next. I saw some really wonderful things, including:
* a woman in a full-length fur coat rollerblading to do her shopping.
* fake palm trees covered in fake snow decorating a cafe.
* a couple walking down the narrow winding street, laughing incredibly goofy laughs, these laughs bouncing off the stone urban canyon and flowing away light water (and bringing tears to my eyes).
The ticket to the museum turned out the bundled with the military museum and 10 euros, so I decided I will check it out when I come back in the spring one of the first Sundays of the month then most museums are free. Tomorrow is reserved for the Pompidu Centre, Musee d'Orsay, and maybe the Delacroix museum if I have time.
Bush arrested in Canada for war crimes
http://www.world-cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/11/30/bush.arrest/index.html
Friday, December 03, 2004
Kitchens, a brief cultural comparison
The French (Mido and JP anyway) say that I will never marry because when I toss the salad, I spill salad leaves on the table. I say, I need a bigger salad bowl. In fact, I find most of the French have a range of inadequate kitchen equipment. This includes the small size of the salad bowls, a complete lack of kitchen knives, and especially chefs knives, and no spices. Most American kitchens I know have a range of perhaps a dozen different spices. The French have salt and pepper, and almost never put it on the table. On the other hand, everyone has a pressure cooker, and I have come to really enjoy using them.
The Poirier Montmartre apartment is more like an American kitchen, and I hope this will help reduce my culture shock when I have to come home to my own American kitchen.
The Poirier Montmartre apartment is more like an American kitchen, and I hope this will help reduce my culture shock when I have to come home to my own American kitchen.
House on Fire, review
It's finally a beautiful day in Paris, and as usual, I am splitting my time between the computer and the bed. In a minute I promise to go out and enjoy it. I found this internet cafe that isn't too expensive not far from the house and bought 5 hours for 10 euros. I plan to come here regularly throughout my final days in Paris this year.
I've been struggling with insonmia, and fatigue from the language classes, and I decided to cut back my consumption of French. This way I can enjoy being here before I go, be rested, and not make myself any crazier. I told my journal the other night that in fact I am just killing time, but on the other hand, this is my life I am trying to live here. It's a big responsibility. I want to do it right.
I have started sorting the papers I have accumulated over the past 5 months and realizing what am amazing experience I have had. I wouldn't trade these 5 months for 30 years working and feeling like crap. Not that I don't feel like crap here too sometimes, but I never feel like I am selling my time/soul for a pittance and someone else's benefit. I wish I could live it all over again. But, I can do better than that; I can live something like it but entirely new again next year.
I finished reading "Once in a House on Fire" by Andrea Ashworth, which is sort of an English version of "Bastard Out of Carolina". My mother didn't like it, so before she had finished it, she gave it to me. My general reaction: some people should not be allowed to have children. period. I haven't worked out the details of this policy, but really.... I didn't like the book much more than my mother did, but I finished it because I had nothing better to read (the Poirier apt, where I am living now, is filled with fabulous books to read, so this won't happen again). I picked out a few quotes, out of desparation, that reasonated with me:
"I fell in love a thousand times -a hundred times a day- with boys, girls, teachers, books, words. Quintessential. Quidditas. Scraphim. Ignotea artes. Even the color of the sky knocked me sideways as I crossed the grass to my English class, wondering whether a plus or a minus would be dangling from the A that was known to bloom at the end of my essays." (pg 275)
She remains this full of herself throughout the book (something I don't really understand bc I don't find her writing that wonderful), but I feel exactly the same way here in Paris some days -- everything I see or hear or taste "knocks me sideways", makes feel like I have been struck by lightening and it is a pleasant experience after all. The color of the sky remains the worst offender, and the book I am reading now, "Paris to the Moon" mentions French politicans regaining their popularity by professing that they are not interested in politics, they now focus on taking long walks and look at the sky. Here, I can hardly blaim them.
From a personal perspective, I loved the quote a few pages later. Family, ex-lovers, and former roommates will know what I mean: "The shreiks of a heartbroken elephant trumpeted through the house each time she blew her nose."
I've been struggling with insonmia, and fatigue from the language classes, and I decided to cut back my consumption of French. This way I can enjoy being here before I go, be rested, and not make myself any crazier. I told my journal the other night that in fact I am just killing time, but on the other hand, this is my life I am trying to live here. It's a big responsibility. I want to do it right.
I have started sorting the papers I have accumulated over the past 5 months and realizing what am amazing experience I have had. I wouldn't trade these 5 months for 30 years working and feeling like crap. Not that I don't feel like crap here too sometimes, but I never feel like I am selling my time/soul for a pittance and someone else's benefit. I wish I could live it all over again. But, I can do better than that; I can live something like it but entirely new again next year.
I finished reading "Once in a House on Fire" by Andrea Ashworth, which is sort of an English version of "Bastard Out of Carolina". My mother didn't like it, so before she had finished it, she gave it to me. My general reaction: some people should not be allowed to have children. period. I haven't worked out the details of this policy, but really.... I didn't like the book much more than my mother did, but I finished it because I had nothing better to read (the Poirier apt, where I am living now, is filled with fabulous books to read, so this won't happen again). I picked out a few quotes, out of desparation, that reasonated with me:
"I fell in love a thousand times -a hundred times a day- with boys, girls, teachers, books, words. Quintessential. Quidditas. Scraphim. Ignotea artes. Even the color of the sky knocked me sideways as I crossed the grass to my English class, wondering whether a plus or a minus would be dangling from the A that was known to bloom at the end of my essays." (pg 275)
She remains this full of herself throughout the book (something I don't really understand bc I don't find her writing that wonderful), but I feel exactly the same way here in Paris some days -- everything I see or hear or taste "knocks me sideways", makes feel like I have been struck by lightening and it is a pleasant experience after all. The color of the sky remains the worst offender, and the book I am reading now, "Paris to the Moon" mentions French politicans regaining their popularity by professing that they are not interested in politics, they now focus on taking long walks and look at the sky. Here, I can hardly blaim them.
From a personal perspective, I loved the quote a few pages later. Family, ex-lovers, and former roommates will know what I mean: "The shreiks of a heartbroken elephant trumpeted through the house each time she blew her nose."
Thursday, December 02, 2004
sleep and food
Well, I didn't sleep well again last night, so this blog might be a bit delerious. Here's the bottom line: the walk to school from the Montmartre apt is stunning, earthshaking. I am so sad I am only going to be doing it another 7 times. I love the new location, even though the last few nights I have just stayed home (more or less).
I told you was going to cook a Mexican dinner for Mido and JP, but I didn't tell you how much they enjoyed it. I went back yesterday and already all of the leftovers were gone (there were a lot of leftovers). I don't think they were just being polite....
I told you was going to cook a Mexican dinner for Mido and JP, but I didn't tell you how much they enjoyed it. I went back yesterday and already all of the leftovers were gone (there were a lot of leftovers). I don't think they were just being polite....
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
music, insomnia, taboo and train tickets
I don't have much to say to you today, but I felt the need to check in since I spent the entire afternoon in front of the computer accomplishing very little. At least I put a dent in my email correspondance. I didn't go to class today because I was too tired to get up (damn insomnia!). I am installed in the Poirier's wonderful Montmartre apartment, listening to the CDs they left for guests (which are almost too tasteful, jazz and classical). I am working my way through them sorting them by how much I like each one. I plan to reassess and determine my precise opinions about the artists. It is wonderful to have music back in my life. (Mido and JP very rarely play any.)
I have decided that music about lost love is absolutely forbidden from my ears. I've been relatively happy over the past few days except when I walk into a shop playing or a lady performs on the Metro a sad love song. It sends me into a mood. Strangely, this is relatively easy to accomplish.
We played Taboo in French class yesterday. This is some kind of stroke of genius on Sandra's part because my interest in winning far outweighs my fear of being incorrect. If I can find room in my bags I might bring one home with me, and anyone with any French language skill will be required to play once a week. We may not make any sense, but we will get used to speaking some kind of pigeon French. Unless I can get some native speakers involved (which actually shouldn't be difficult). Hmm....
Oh, in case anyone is interested in talking with me, I realized that I can receive calls from the states free of charge (to both of us!) on my mobile phone (415-290-...). I might turn it on and wait for your call when I am not sleeping (so don't worry about the time difference). Can you tell I am excited to see you guys again?
And if anyone wants my return ticket on the Eurostar (London-Paris, 12 Jan) let me know. It was cheaper than getting it one-way.
I have decided that music about lost love is absolutely forbidden from my ears. I've been relatively happy over the past few days except when I walk into a shop playing or a lady performs on the Metro a sad love song. It sends me into a mood. Strangely, this is relatively easy to accomplish.
We played Taboo in French class yesterday. This is some kind of stroke of genius on Sandra's part because my interest in winning far outweighs my fear of being incorrect. If I can find room in my bags I might bring one home with me, and anyone with any French language skill will be required to play once a week. We may not make any sense, but we will get used to speaking some kind of pigeon French. Unless I can get some native speakers involved (which actually shouldn't be difficult). Hmm....
Oh, in case anyone is interested in talking with me, I realized that I can receive calls from the states free of charge (to both of us!) on my mobile phone (415-290-...). I might turn it on and wait for your call when I am not sleeping (so don't worry about the time difference). Can you tell I am excited to see you guys again?
And if anyone wants my return ticket on the Eurostar (London-Paris, 12 Jan) let me know. It was cheaper than getting it one-way.
Monday, November 29, 2004
On fate unfolding
I just wrote this incredible blog, and then blogger lost it, so this is my second attempt and it may not be as good....
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 10:30:13 -0800
To: Lilia
From: Elizabeth Stark
...Though, actually, I have come to believe that what other people *do* is really only my fate unfolding, the universe taking care of me, however you want to look at it....
This reminds me of a bookmark that Grayson's stepmother Emily once gave me that said something? "... is what you do with what's been done to you." I have a problem with the idea of anything being done TO me. Afterall, I am aware of the risks of every choice I make. So, I prefer Elizabeth's way of putting it. I met this guy recently who my friends told me never took any risks. He works for a large company, has a good job, never has a girlfriend, invests conservatively, and while he was a very nice person, I couldn't help feeling like there was a certain lack of life to him. We choose these risks for higher possible rewards and the risks themselves in turn give us life, color in our cheeks, spring in our steps... This was the place in the last installment where I said "remind me never to be cautious" but then I realized that I never am (never? usually not...).
When I was in highschool I believed completely in fate. I believe it so much that I could justify not doing my homework, or studying, or even showing up at school. It was only after I finished college that I realized if I am ever going to be content with myself, I am going to have to work hard and believe that I deserve what I want. So, I guess I don't really believe in fate anymore.
Another thing I believed was that by the time I was 24 I would finish by PhD and get married. The problem with that is that I never figured out what to get my PhD in or who to marry. I don't know exactly what "in love" means, but I think I've been there with both people who loved me too and people who didn't. Well, even when we found an emotional common ground, we still weren't compatable for other reasons. And I cried and rended my clothing in the freezing rain and after a while I ventured out again for more punishment, as it were. My mother likes to remind me that even if I had gotten married or my PhD, I am statistically likely to be divorced and/or working in another field by now.
Another of Elizabeth's quotes is "when you ask the universe for something, she has 3 possible answers: yes, not yet, or I have something better for you." I guess that's saying the same thing again. The quote about fate that resonates with me most is from Heraclitus "character is fate" because I can see so clearly how others divine their destiny. I just wish I had a better mirror and could see it for myself.
When I quit my job at UBH back in 1996, people didn't understand why. I told them, "I have to make something out of myself." This incredibly beautiful African woman wearing a brightly patterned traditional wrap replied by the copy machine "like a scarf or a hat? do you knit?" 8 years and another degree later, I feel like am still struggling with the same question, except this time it is a little different. I am not longer interested in making myself into something else; now I just want to figure out how to be who I am.
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 10:30:13 -0800
To: Lilia
From: Elizabeth Stark
...Though, actually, I have come to believe that what other people *do* is really only my fate unfolding, the universe taking care of me, however you want to look at it....
This reminds me of a bookmark that Grayson's stepmother Emily once gave me that said something? "... is what you do with what's been done to you." I have a problem with the idea of anything being done TO me. Afterall, I am aware of the risks of every choice I make. So, I prefer Elizabeth's way of putting it. I met this guy recently who my friends told me never took any risks. He works for a large company, has a good job, never has a girlfriend, invests conservatively, and while he was a very nice person, I couldn't help feeling like there was a certain lack of life to him. We choose these risks for higher possible rewards and the risks themselves in turn give us life, color in our cheeks, spring in our steps... This was the place in the last installment where I said "remind me never to be cautious" but then I realized that I never am (never? usually not...).
When I was in highschool I believed completely in fate. I believe it so much that I could justify not doing my homework, or studying, or even showing up at school. It was only after I finished college that I realized if I am ever going to be content with myself, I am going to have to work hard and believe that I deserve what I want. So, I guess I don't really believe in fate anymore.
Another thing I believed was that by the time I was 24 I would finish by PhD and get married. The problem with that is that I never figured out what to get my PhD in or who to marry. I don't know exactly what "in love" means, but I think I've been there with both people who loved me too and people who didn't. Well, even when we found an emotional common ground, we still weren't compatable for other reasons. And I cried and rended my clothing in the freezing rain and after a while I ventured out again for more punishment, as it were. My mother likes to remind me that even if I had gotten married or my PhD, I am statistically likely to be divorced and/or working in another field by now.
Another of Elizabeth's quotes is "when you ask the universe for something, she has 3 possible answers: yes, not yet, or I have something better for you." I guess that's saying the same thing again. The quote about fate that resonates with me most is from Heraclitus "character is fate" because I can see so clearly how others divine their destiny. I just wish I had a better mirror and could see it for myself.
When I quit my job at UBH back in 1996, people didn't understand why. I told them, "I have to make something out of myself." This incredibly beautiful African woman wearing a brightly patterned traditional wrap replied by the copy machine "like a scarf or a hat? do you knit?" 8 years and another degree later, I feel like am still struggling with the same question, except this time it is a little different. I am not longer interested in making myself into something else; now I just want to figure out how to be who I am.
Dear President Bush
[source unknown to me]
Dear President Bush:
Congratulations on your victory over all us non-evangelicals. Actually,
we're a bit ticked off here in California, so we're leaving you.
California will now be its own country. And we're taking all the Blue
States with us. In case you are not aware, that includes Hawaii,
Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, all of
the North East States, and the urban half of Ohio.
We spoke to God, and she agrees that this split will be beneficial to
almost everybody, and especially to us in the new country of
California. In fact, God is so excited about it, she's going to shift
the whole country at 4:30 PM EST this Friday. Therefore, please let
everyone know they need to be back in their states by then. God is
going to give us the Pacific Ocean and Hollywood. In addition, we're
getting San Diego. (Sorry, that's just how it goes.) But God is letting
you have the KKK and country music (except the Dixie Chicks).
Just so we're clear, the country of California will be pro-choice,
pro-gay marriage, and antiwar. Speaking of war, we're going to need
all Blue States citizens back from Iraq. If you need people to fight in
Fallujah, just ask your evangelical voters. They have tons of kids
they're willing to send to their deaths for absolutely no purpose. And
they don't care if you don't show pictures of their kids' caskets
coming home.
So, you get Texas and all the former slave states, and we get the
Governator and stem cell research. (We would love you to take Britney
Spears off our hands, though. She IS from the South, right?)
Since we get New York, you'll have to come up with your own late night
TV shows because we get MTV, Letterman, the Daily Show, and Conan
O'Brien. You get... well, why don't you ask your people at Fox News to
come up with something entertaining? (Maybe you should just watch
Crossfire. That's a really funny show.)
We wish you all the best in the next four years and we hope, really
hope, you find those missing weapons of mass destruction. Seriously.
Soon.
Sincerely,
California
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never
stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and
neither do we."
-President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004
Dear President Bush:
Congratulations on your victory over all us non-evangelicals. Actually,
we're a bit ticked off here in California, so we're leaving you.
California will now be its own country. And we're taking all the Blue
States with us. In case you are not aware, that includes Hawaii,
Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, all of
the North East States, and the urban half of Ohio.
We spoke to God, and she agrees that this split will be beneficial to
almost everybody, and especially to us in the new country of
California. In fact, God is so excited about it, she's going to shift
the whole country at 4:30 PM EST this Friday. Therefore, please let
everyone know they need to be back in their states by then. God is
going to give us the Pacific Ocean and Hollywood. In addition, we're
getting San Diego. (Sorry, that's just how it goes.) But God is letting
you have the KKK and country music (except the Dixie Chicks).
Just so we're clear, the country of California will be pro-choice,
pro-gay marriage, and antiwar. Speaking of war, we're going to need
all Blue States citizens back from Iraq. If you need people to fight in
Fallujah, just ask your evangelical voters. They have tons of kids
they're willing to send to their deaths for absolutely no purpose. And
they don't care if you don't show pictures of their kids' caskets
coming home.
So, you get Texas and all the former slave states, and we get the
Governator and stem cell research. (We would love you to take Britney
Spears off our hands, though. She IS from the South, right?)
Since we get New York, you'll have to come up with your own late night
TV shows because we get MTV, Letterman, the Daily Show, and Conan
O'Brien. You get... well, why don't you ask your people at Fox News to
come up with something entertaining? (Maybe you should just watch
Crossfire. That's a really funny show.)
We wish you all the best in the next four years and we hope, really
hope, you find those missing weapons of mass destruction. Seriously.
Soon.
Sincerely,
California
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never
stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and
neither do we."
-President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004
No dreams
I returned to class again today after being out late seeing some local bands at this scottish bar called the Lizard Lounge (which I might have mentioned before). My teacher Stephanie sang with a band called The Loved Ones about broken hearts and missed connections. Maybe it was part of her performance, but she spoke about trying to date an English guy who could never tell her how he felt about her. She has a very animated style of singing, and most of their songs seemed to be covers. Before her, a scottish singer/songwriter played some hilarious tunes about having nothing in his apartment, stray dogs, and trying to speak French. We got on his mailing list!
I got home about 12:30, and as usual (these days) had trouble sleeping. Looking at the clock might disrupt my imminent slumber, so I don't know how long it took me, but I think it was close to 3 by the time I finally lost consciousness. I don't remember any dreams, and waking up for class this morning was as painful as I ever remember getting up in the morning being. I think there is really something wrong with getting out of bed before the sun has risen.
One of the teachers/owners didn't show up, so classes were combined. I have a new teacher, Sandra, who comes highly recommended, and I am lumped in with the advanced students. Now, I can perfectly understand most everything that Stephanie says, but I can't understand Sandra at all. No, she doesn't have an accent or anything. I spent my 4 hours of class drifting in and out of consciousness, understanding about 50 percent when I paid attention. it's like being back in regular school again. Of course, I need to learn to understand other french people besides Stephanie, so, I think I will learn more in this new situation. Another trial by fire, if you will.
There are about 6 other students in my class, none of whom are named Lilia (did I mention that that was the name of the Mexican girl from last week? I opted to be called Lily to avoid confusion.). Some of them I already knew from chats at break time, and some are entirely new to me. I think 3 are American, 1 Polish girl, and 2 Kiwis. The Polish girl is incredibly cute and so are the Kiwis. Everyone speaks better French than I do. Again, I live in fear I will be demoted to the beginner class.
I have promised to cook a Mexican dinner tonight for Mido and Jean Pierre. Tomorrow I move to Montmartre. I was really worried about living alone and feeling isolated, but I seem to have been able to fill up my dance card for the week already. I am starting to feel like everything is falling into place....
I got home about 12:30, and as usual (these days) had trouble sleeping. Looking at the clock might disrupt my imminent slumber, so I don't know how long it took me, but I think it was close to 3 by the time I finally lost consciousness. I don't remember any dreams, and waking up for class this morning was as painful as I ever remember getting up in the morning being. I think there is really something wrong with getting out of bed before the sun has risen.
One of the teachers/owners didn't show up, so classes were combined. I have a new teacher, Sandra, who comes highly recommended, and I am lumped in with the advanced students. Now, I can perfectly understand most everything that Stephanie says, but I can't understand Sandra at all. No, she doesn't have an accent or anything. I spent my 4 hours of class drifting in and out of consciousness, understanding about 50 percent when I paid attention. it's like being back in regular school again. Of course, I need to learn to understand other french people besides Stephanie, so, I think I will learn more in this new situation. Another trial by fire, if you will.
There are about 6 other students in my class, none of whom are named Lilia (did I mention that that was the name of the Mexican girl from last week? I opted to be called Lily to avoid confusion.). Some of them I already knew from chats at break time, and some are entirely new to me. I think 3 are American, 1 Polish girl, and 2 Kiwis. The Polish girl is incredibly cute and so are the Kiwis. Everyone speaks better French than I do. Again, I live in fear I will be demoted to the beginner class.
I have promised to cook a Mexican dinner tonight for Mido and Jean Pierre. Tomorrow I move to Montmartre. I was really worried about living alone and feeling isolated, but I seem to have been able to fill up my dance card for the week already. I am starting to feel like everything is falling into place....
Sunday, November 28, 2004
Rain, nice
It's raining in Paris today, which, from my dry californian perspective, is a huge relief. I woke late after a series of strange dreams that seemed to require a lot of my attention (about 11 hours). I woke up feeling that my subconscious had resolved some things, and although I feel good, I have no idea exactly what was resolved.
Yesterday Gitte took us (me and Tina) to a Danish xmas Bazar at the Danish church. It was small, and very sweet. I fell in love with a little teddy bear designed to hang from the xmas tree. He was only 2 euros, so he is my new companion. There wasn't much else to buy, but we got some delicious food (beautiful open faced sandwiches with lox, roast beef, cheese, fish, etc.), then walked a long way before stopping for hot drinks at a cafe. It was an excellent day.
Yesterday Gitte took us (me and Tina) to a Danish xmas Bazar at the Danish church. It was small, and very sweet. I fell in love with a little teddy bear designed to hang from the xmas tree. He was only 2 euros, so he is my new companion. There wasn't much else to buy, but we got some delicious food (beautiful open faced sandwiches with lox, roast beef, cheese, fish, etc.), then walked a long way before stopping for hot drinks at a cafe. It was an excellent day.
Friday, November 26, 2004
Monet/I feel much better.
What I really need is someone to kick me in the butt and get me out of the house, even when the weather is bad. I had a beautiful afternoon (even though the clouds never thinned or parted). I decided to go to the Marmottan Museum because, while I swear I have been to every other museum in Paris at some point over the last 20 years, I had not been to this one. My guide said that it had a nice collection of Monets (yes, I have been known to call Monet boring) but it actually has a lot of other stuff too.
About Monet being boring... I totally respect the way he blasted through the convensions of the art world and talked about light and mood, shadow and form when this was considered outragous. I love that. But when I look at his skillfully crafted images, all I see is pretty. I am not that interested in pretty. I want pretty, i can look in the mirror ;-) or go see some real flowers that are alive right at this moment. (I like things that are alive now.) But, well, I also want to see and do everything. And he is a really good painter. So, that necesitated seeing this museum.
It is so incredible that a person can learn to speak in brushstrokes like that. It's like another language in another dimension. I makes me think of friends who can paint -- when asked what languages they speak they should say "English, German, and I paint with watercolors" (thinking of Grayson because it is his birthday today). Monet spoke about light, color, form and hue with amazing articulateness, but I don't think he had much sense of people or emotion. At the same museum, they have a nice collection of Berthe Morisot, Jean Puy, and a couple paintings by a smattering of other impressionists. While Morisot's sensitivity to light does not hold a candle to Monet's sun, she captures a glance, a pouting lip, the turn of a shoulder in a way that Monet never did. Yet there is a fluidity in both their brush strokes that resembles each other.
I hadn't seen Monet's painting of agapanthes before, and for such a common flower (in CA anyway), I like them more than the waterlilies (my namesake!). Quand j'etais petite I used to scorn common flowers, the ones that grew on hedges or in front of apartment buildings. I didn't really consider them flowers, the thing that I love. Now, I find beauty in the common flowers, possibly more than the exotic. I don't know what this means... am I growing old and inflexible? Is it a buddhist thing? Does it mean I might someday be happy with stability? Am I getting boring?
Looking at all those paintings of that pond at Giverny, I wondered how Monet didn't get bored with it. That same Japanese bridge over and over, Monet examining carefully for changes in the reflected light. I would become stir crazy, even in a garden. Of course, he was in his 80s by the time he was going full-swing on that series. Maybe I will have more patience in another 50 years.
For a long time now I have known that I wanted to get back into doing portraits -- drawing people. It's just hard to find a time and get people to cooperate and I guess I am too timid to ask usually. I should start with some self-portraits so as not to waste anyones time while I get back into the swing of it. My paintings are flat like Gaugin....
After the museum... well... there was this manual merry-go-round, which I took a picture of, which is absolutely extraordinary. I guess I will leave it to the photo to describe later. I wonder about pictures and their allegorical thousand words. Doesn't each word also have a thousand pictures? If it were a database, and you know how I love databases, it would certainly be a many-to-many relationship.
Then I went to a cafe and got a grand chocolat chaud, and had the nicest waiter I have ever had. Juliette would call it charm, but I think that we instantly had a deep and spiritual connection (me and the waiter, but also the hot chocolate). It was the best hot chocolate I have had outside of my home, ever! (and you would be surprised by the crappy ones I have been served in france, the supposed culinary capital of the world -- more on that another time.) I sat and wrote in my journal until the cafe closed (some of the stuff you have read here) and the new waiter/love-of-my-life (kidding) helped me get my coat on.
I strolled the beautiful, shop-lined, lit-up for xmas, winding streets of the uber-fancy 16th arrondissement until I _stumbled_ upon - can you believe it - the eiffel tower! I am thinking of buying a new pair of boots. The other thing I want to mention is that throughout today I spoke French with, and mostly understood, everyone I interacted with. Hurray.
Tomorrow, Gitte is taking us to the Danish Christmas Bazar.... Tomorrow night, I am meeting J&G's friend Pierre for I am not sure what but I told him it has to be strictly Parisien, creative, and alternative. But for tonight I am just an internet geek.
About Monet being boring... I totally respect the way he blasted through the convensions of the art world and talked about light and mood, shadow and form when this was considered outragous. I love that. But when I look at his skillfully crafted images, all I see is pretty. I am not that interested in pretty. I want pretty, i can look in the mirror ;-) or go see some real flowers that are alive right at this moment. (I like things that are alive now.) But, well, I also want to see and do everything. And he is a really good painter. So, that necesitated seeing this museum.
It is so incredible that a person can learn to speak in brushstrokes like that. It's like another language in another dimension. I makes me think of friends who can paint -- when asked what languages they speak they should say "English, German, and I paint with watercolors" (thinking of Grayson because it is his birthday today). Monet spoke about light, color, form and hue with amazing articulateness, but I don't think he had much sense of people or emotion. At the same museum, they have a nice collection of Berthe Morisot, Jean Puy, and a couple paintings by a smattering of other impressionists. While Morisot's sensitivity to light does not hold a candle to Monet's sun, she captures a glance, a pouting lip, the turn of a shoulder in a way that Monet never did. Yet there is a fluidity in both their brush strokes that resembles each other.
I hadn't seen Monet's painting of agapanthes before, and for such a common flower (in CA anyway), I like them more than the waterlilies (my namesake!). Quand j'etais petite I used to scorn common flowers, the ones that grew on hedges or in front of apartment buildings. I didn't really consider them flowers, the thing that I love. Now, I find beauty in the common flowers, possibly more than the exotic. I don't know what this means... am I growing old and inflexible? Is it a buddhist thing? Does it mean I might someday be happy with stability? Am I getting boring?
Looking at all those paintings of that pond at Giverny, I wondered how Monet didn't get bored with it. That same Japanese bridge over and over, Monet examining carefully for changes in the reflected light. I would become stir crazy, even in a garden. Of course, he was in his 80s by the time he was going full-swing on that series. Maybe I will have more patience in another 50 years.
For a long time now I have known that I wanted to get back into doing portraits -- drawing people. It's just hard to find a time and get people to cooperate and I guess I am too timid to ask usually. I should start with some self-portraits so as not to waste anyones time while I get back into the swing of it. My paintings are flat like Gaugin....
After the museum... well... there was this manual merry-go-round, which I took a picture of, which is absolutely extraordinary. I guess I will leave it to the photo to describe later. I wonder about pictures and their allegorical thousand words. Doesn't each word also have a thousand pictures? If it were a database, and you know how I love databases, it would certainly be a many-to-many relationship.
Then I went to a cafe and got a grand chocolat chaud, and had the nicest waiter I have ever had. Juliette would call it charm, but I think that we instantly had a deep and spiritual connection (me and the waiter, but also the hot chocolate). It was the best hot chocolate I have had outside of my home, ever! (and you would be surprised by the crappy ones I have been served in france, the supposed culinary capital of the world -- more on that another time.) I sat and wrote in my journal until the cafe closed (some of the stuff you have read here) and the new waiter/love-of-my-life (kidding) helped me get my coat on.
I strolled the beautiful, shop-lined, lit-up for xmas, winding streets of the uber-fancy 16th arrondissement until I _stumbled_ upon - can you believe it - the eiffel tower! I am thinking of buying a new pair of boots. The other thing I want to mention is that throughout today I spoke French with, and mostly understood, everyone I interacted with. Hurray.
Tomorrow, Gitte is taking us to the Danish Christmas Bazar.... Tomorrow night, I am meeting J&G's friend Pierre for I am not sure what but I told him it has to be strictly Parisien, creative, and alternative. But for tonight I am just an internet geek.
More thoughts on weather
I don't want to have any profanity in my blog, but I just have one quick thing to say: THIS WEATHER IS SHIT! IF IT WOULD JUST BLOODY RAIN OR SOMETHING.... now that i got that off my chest, I will observe that we californians know that we have perfect weather, intellectually, but I don't think we really realize what a big deal that is. Laura said that the 6 months they lived in Paris it rained every single day between January and the end of June. She said it rained the day they left. I can report that Sept 1, it immediately got cold and stayed cold. This means the Parisiens, and probably all of Europe, have bad weather 10 months out of the year. And August is impossibly hot. That means 11 months of bad weather. Now, why would people stay in a place like this? Why would they build a beautiful city? I have trouble believing that it would be lack of creativity or resources given the way this city looks.
I'm tired. I sleep all the time. I can't stop crying. My life lacks meaning. And you know what? It isn't me! It is the evil dark weather. This knowledge is the only thing getting me through. This would never happen in summer. (I am wracking my brain to remember if that is true, and I really think it is. But those who know me well can feel free to correct me.) Forgive the melodrama, but this blog is, afterall, all about me.
I'm tired. I sleep all the time. I can't stop crying. My life lacks meaning. And you know what? It isn't me! It is the evil dark weather. This knowledge is the only thing getting me through. This would never happen in summer. (I am wracking my brain to remember if that is true, and I really think it is. But those who know me well can feel free to correct me.) Forgive the melodrama, but this blog is, afterall, all about me.
Thursday, November 25, 2004
Thanksgiving
Of course, I have running through my mind all sorts of stories that I haven't recorded for you yet, but then I realized that today is the day to think about what we are thankful for, and it seemed like a better idea to do a blog on that....
Today, I am thankful for all the people everywhere trying fighting against corruption in government and for real democracy.
I am thankful for idealism, even when it seems impossible to realize.
I am thankful for everyone who works to make the world a better place when it would be so much easier, no, not easier, more immediate just to try to live.
I am thankful for friendship, most immediately my friends here in Paris who have been so kind to and supportive of me even though we only just met, and for all my old friends who I miss so much.
I am thankful for stinky cheese, red wine, kir, pastry, chocolate crepe and decaf espresso (because it doesn't make me feel horribly depressed 3 hours later like regular coffee does).
I am thankful that I do not have a toothache, that I am in good health, that my parents are alive and relatively healthy.
I am thankful for sunshine, for summer, for wool blankets in winter, and sweaters and scarves, hats and gloves.
I am thankful that I have a roof over my head no matter where I go and enough food to eat (sometimes too much).
I am thankful to the B/G family for being such kind and generous hosts all this time, and to the Poiriers for sharing their apartment with me too.
I am thankful for all the people working to feed the hungry, house the homeless, and cure the sick.
I am thankful for clean water to drink.
I am thankful I can see, because Paris is beautiful but it usual does not sound, smell or feel that great.
I am thankful for sleep, when it comes.
I am thankful that my body is able to walk a long way without getting too tired, because I really enjoy walking.
I am thankful for my bicycle and all its years of service to me and I hope it is still waiting for me in my garage on Capp Street.
I am thankful for my subletter and my landlord.
I am thankful that I am lucky enough to be able to cut loose and move to Europe for 5 months....
I am thankful to the people I know in good relationships showing the rest of us that healthy love is possible.
I am thankful for literature, because it brings me so much happiness.
I am thankful for blogger.com, because I really like my blog.
I am thankful for the internet.
I am thankful for my education and for all the people who believe in me: past, present and future.
...
More than anything, right at this moment, I am thankful for true friendship.
Today, I am thankful for all the people everywhere trying fighting against corruption in government and for real democracy.
I am thankful for idealism, even when it seems impossible to realize.
I am thankful for everyone who works to make the world a better place when it would be so much easier, no, not easier, more immediate just to try to live.
I am thankful for friendship, most immediately my friends here in Paris who have been so kind to and supportive of me even though we only just met, and for all my old friends who I miss so much.
I am thankful for stinky cheese, red wine, kir, pastry, chocolate crepe and decaf espresso (because it doesn't make me feel horribly depressed 3 hours later like regular coffee does).
I am thankful that I do not have a toothache, that I am in good health, that my parents are alive and relatively healthy.
I am thankful for sunshine, for summer, for wool blankets in winter, and sweaters and scarves, hats and gloves.
I am thankful that I have a roof over my head no matter where I go and enough food to eat (sometimes too much).
I am thankful to the B/G family for being such kind and generous hosts all this time, and to the Poiriers for sharing their apartment with me too.
I am thankful for all the people working to feed the hungry, house the homeless, and cure the sick.
I am thankful for clean water to drink.
I am thankful I can see, because Paris is beautiful but it usual does not sound, smell or feel that great.
I am thankful for sleep, when it comes.
I am thankful that my body is able to walk a long way without getting too tired, because I really enjoy walking.
I am thankful for my bicycle and all its years of service to me and I hope it is still waiting for me in my garage on Capp Street.
I am thankful for my subletter and my landlord.
I am thankful that I am lucky enough to be able to cut loose and move to Europe for 5 months....
I am thankful to the people I know in good relationships showing the rest of us that healthy love is possible.
I am thankful for literature, because it brings me so much happiness.
I am thankful for blogger.com, because I really like my blog.
I am thankful for the internet.
I am thankful for my education and for all the people who believe in me: past, present and future.
...
More than anything, right at this moment, I am thankful for true friendship.
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